Power Without Limit (Worm-SWN SI)
by TheFat1
Summary: The author wakes up in Brocton Bay with the powers of a Psychic from Stars Without Number 1e. Now, all he has to do is survive Leviathan, invent future technology, level well past the average, and try not to be driven insane by his own powers. Should be simple, right? Contains some fourth wall breaking/poking, themes of depression, and a plot partially driven by dice rolls.
1. Awoken 1-1

For those interested in character sheets and other meta goodies in future, this story is also over on Spacebattles.

Also, check out both Worm, if you somehow haven't, and Stars Without Number, which recently released a second edition with a more freeform, modern system, and which offers both editions of the game for free! This story is based off the first edition of the game, which is closer to Traveler or DnD in terms of its leveling and systems.

Finally, This story will see some basic 4th-wall breaks, but the SI isn't aware of the outside world or stuff like dice roll results. Mostly, he's just talking to himself, occasionally with an audience in mind, while hoping he's not crazy already. Hopefully you will give that style a chance, but I understand if it's too much for some readers.

With all that said, on with the fic!

* * *

Awoken 1.1

I woke up in a strange place.

Not strange because it was weird, or horrific, or anything. No, it was just a basement. I'd been sleeping on the floor in a basement. The problem was, I had no idea how I'd gotten here. Last thing I remembered, I'd been going to sleep, in my own bed, at my own home. I didn't even recognize this as one of my friend's basements. It was just a musty place with a lot of stacked boxes and a concrete floor.

It didn't make sense. If I'd been kidnapped, there was no money for the ransom, and I wasn't sore or tied up. I almost never get drunk or high, and never without friends around, so that would make even less sense explaining my current situation.

"What the hell…" I muttered to myself, getting off the floor. I put a hand to my head to shake off my familiar waking headache. I froze as I looked at my wrist.

There was something strapped to the underside of my right forearm.

I cautiously looked it over, rotating my arm to check it out. The machine consisted of a long, matte black panel with some buttons, a few seams, and a closed slot on the hand end. It didn't look like a cuff or anything. it even had a pretty simple latch on the strap.

"No, seriously, what the hell?" I said, a little more exasperated. Was I in some Saw fanatic's basement? Was that a tracker or shock collar or something? I patted myself down, and more surprises followed.

So, first off, my clothing was just weird. All crafted out of an unfamiliar material that was simultaneously reminiscent of silk and expensive moisture-wicking fabric, mostly black with grey accents, with enough zippered pockets spread across the set to make a steampunk cosplayer blush. The cuts were tailor-grade, with long sleeves and pants that were the perfect lengths for their respective limbs, and a quick check of underwear and socks found them to be of similar quality. I had only the vaguest sense of how expensive they would be, and that sense was yelling 'a lot' at the top of its lungs. To top it off, I had a very expensive-looking backpack, the kind that manages to carry a whole bunch of stuff without getting in your way. A backpack that flawlessly matched my clothing in style and materials.

Weird.

I ended up laying stuff out on a nearby box lid, occasionally glancing around to make sure nothing was creeping up on me. Not too helpful when half the basement was hidden behind towers of totes, but still.

Inside the pack, there were several cloth kits simply labeled "Survival" and "Medical", a random, really odd-looking battery thing, and one really big sealed packet, like the kind gauze came in, which was unlabeled. Also, my waist had a sheath on it, containing a ten-inch, carbon-black kukri/bowie hybrid, and my pocket had a very strange-looking phone. All angular, and it had no screen edges, ports, or any visible camera; the thing looked like a polished slab of hematite. Only reason I knew what it was? The screen turned on when I pulled it out. But even then, the interface was unfamiliar and complex, more like an old computer's bare-bones UI than anything.

So, I was in a basement with basic survival gear, a weird forearm-thing I didn't dare mess with, and a phone I couldn't understand how to use. Sighing, I put the stuff away. No more wasting time, I needed to leave.

I made my way around the tower of storage, and came to another stop.

"Fuck me."

That's a bomb.

Point towards being kidnapped by a fan of horror.

I mean, it's possible it wasn't a bomb. Perfectly reasonable for a small, football-sized device to have a digital timer.

Okay, serious time. The clock is ticking, in the most literal way possible. I ran for the staircase, started banging on the door. "Hello? Help, help, HELP! OPEN THE DOOR GODAMMIT!" Nothing. I tried smashing down the door as best I could, but it wasn't happening. "Seriously, who has a fucking solid wood door on their basement! Let me out of here!"

I gave up, and made my way back to the bomb. If I was gonna die anyway, at least I'd die trying to figure out how to stop it from happening.

The apparatus was encased in a translucent blue shell, with a small hatch door near the timer. Through the shell I could dimly make out wires and circuitry. According to the timer, I had fifteen minutes to live.

 **Tech/Pretech Check (Int): Rolled 10+1 vs. difficulty 11. Pass.**

I sat down next to it, and got my third surprise of the evening. I knew exactly what to do, and I also knew what was going on here.

This was a matter transmutation bomb, Tech Level 5. It would turn a city block into glass, and it was a prototype. I had to defuse nine trigger mechanisms, including a trigger that went off if the others were disabled and one that set the bomb off 1 minute before the timer if the case was open. My 'metatool' should have the tools I needed to disable it, but the bomb won't be functional afterward.

I was a fucking Stars Without Number character. And this was Bakuda's work.

"Fuck. Me."

I got to work. Leaning over, I pressed a button on my metatool, and a miniature arc welder extended into my hand. I cut open the latch, and swapped it for a more mundane pair of wire clippers. Letting myself go on autopilot, I thought about my situation.

Okay, I'm in the Wormverse. No biggie, right? Just another cape. I was me, so that means one of two things. I talked aloud as I worked, to keep my thoughts straight.

"Hypothesis 1: Random Omnipotent Beings exist. I doubt it, but it could be the case, I guess. I'd like to think God didn't screw with people like that, though." I snipped a wire, and swapped tools to a pair of needlenose pliers, the wire clippers retracting back into the casing of the metatool.

"Hypothesis 2: My memories are false. That would be a feat almost beyond belief, unless I've been matrix'd or the laws of physics are a lie, so I'm gonna keep assuming that they are indeed real." Two triggers down. The third was easier. "Counterpoint: Crainial exists, if this is the Wormverse. Counter-counterpoint, my memories would have no reason to be accurate in that regard." I stopped the train of thought, focusing on a particularly difficult bit of trigger mechanism. That path led to madness anyway.

"Hypothesis 3: I am being inserted into Worm via fanfiction. This is… probably the best one yet, unfortunately." I thought about that a little while, unscrewing a panel as I did so. "What class am I?" I realized I still had a headache, and it clicked. "…I'm probably a psychic. So, this isn't one of my friends writing me, because I'm the only one who ever bothers playing them. Which means… real me is a fucking cocksucker who wants me to go insane."

I sighed, and went back to work. This was gonna be tiring.

As I snipped the final deadman switch, I realized something else.

"I could have picked the lock this whole time." I facepalmed. The bomb would have still gone off, but… my train of thought trailed off. But what? I'd save myself? There was no way I could've convinced people to evacuate in time.

"I hate you, me."

I picked the lock. Opening the door, I found myself in a pub. It must be that magical time when nobody was here, I guess. So, if that was a Bakuda bomb, then I was in Brockton Bay, and her bombing spree was probably about to happen, if it wasn't ongoing. So, this was likely a Nazi bar. That made me feel much better about breaking the front door when I failed to pick it correctly.

 **Encounter cleared. 700 xp.**

Now on the street, I set about finding a map, or bus, or something. I needed to get a handle on my location, and to form a game plan. The good news was, I was definitely downtown, and I could get glimpses of the infamous Protectorate HQ. The bad news was that I didn't dare join the Protectorate, because lie detectors, background checks, etc.

I pulled out my commpad- the phone thing- and messed around in the settings. If I remembered the rules right- yeah, I could connect to cell tower networks pretty easily. Yay, piracy! Thirty minutes in this dimension and I'm already a criminal on multiple counts!

I dialed 411. Not the most useful thing, but it would hopefully help.

"Welcome to the Brockton Bay Information Hotline. Due to unexpected traffic, there are no available live assistants at this time. Please hold."

Or not, I thought as I hung up. That answered one question, though. Today was likely the first or second day of the bombing spree, before they had enough operators for the disaster call load. I mentally shrugged, and headed in the direction of the sea. If anywhere would have a bus route, it would be the Boardwalk. Plus, good reference point for stuff in Brockton Bay.

One thing I realized as I walked; if real me is writing a fanfiction, then I have readers to entertain. Avoid certain activities, don't use my real information, spout exposition mentally. It was a really weird thought, and an uncomfortable one. But hey, they probably already noticed that I talk to myself, so…

"Hey," I said, since nobody was around, "So, you're probably wondering why I was so pissed off earlier. I just kind of get the implications, but SWN is not nearly as popular as DnD, so…" I crossed the street. "Stars Without Number is this Sci-fi Sandbox RPG. Great world, cool mechanics, awesome technology, the works. It has three classes: Warriors, who are great combatants and have shitloads of health; Experts, who are basically Uber or Victor, but useful; and Psychics, who are about as close to parahumans as you can get.

"Psychics have a cool backstory too, but I won't bore you with that right now. They also have major downsides, and that's my issue. They have really shit hit points, for one; they only learn a few select skills quickly, and the rest cost a ton; and they have cool psychic powers, but those have some major fine print attached." I felt really silly talking to myself, but I was on a roll now. I stroked my goatee while I thought about how to continue.

"So… basically, think of psychics as magic users from your favorite game. Any magic user has MP or PP or something, a way to track how many spells you can cast, how much they cost, stuff like that. I do too, but the _fun_ part," I said with false cheer, "comes when I run out. You see, most magic users become useless when they have no MP, but I get another option; I can Torch." I crossed another street, nodding to a guy on a scooter as he waited for the light. Once I was alone, I continued.

"Psychic powers are channeled through the brain, and we're talking major energy levels here. If I run out of PP, that means I've exhausted my brains' trained channels, and cannot safely use my powers. At that point, if I want, I can force my powers to burn through the channels anyway, aka Torching. When I do, I get to use any power for free; but the real me rolls a dice, and unless I get lucky, I lose a point of either Constitution or Wisdom, permanently. Con loss means I get more weak and sickly, Wis loss means I make worse decisions, both affect my skill rolls, and if one of them hits 3, I'll be lucky if I die. The other option is permanent, incurable, homicidal insanity, with a side of unlimited cosmic power."

I kicked a bit of gravel, shoving my hands in my pockets. "The real kicker is that I'm in the Wormverse. All I need to deplete my reserves is one bad fight, and that's almost guaranteed. So, I can choose to either die when that happens, or choose permanent physical or mental injury. And with Golden Morning coming up, the only way I avoid that is to ramp my way to immortality. Mr. Space Whale is gonna blow up the multiverse in two years, and that's not enough time to escalate sufficiently. Which means that I have to kill Jack Slash, so he doesn't set it off too soon."

I paused, finally coming to the shoreline. Before me stretched the Bay, with the massive monolith of Tinkertech that the fandom called the Rig outlined in dark relief against the morning sun.

"Which means I have less than a month to figure out how the hell I survive Leviathan."


	2. Awoken 1-2

Mostly a setup chapter, which I was planning to release the same day as the first. The delays were thanks to my laptop finally decaying to the point that it crashes within half an hour of turning on, making any editing or writing unfeasible, and forcing me to wait all week for the chance to borrow a family member's laptop. I should be able to use it 90% of the time, and it's not like I have an update schedule anymore, but I figured I should let people know what's up. Enjoy the chapter!

* * *

Awoken 1.2

I turned away from the ominously breathtaking view, and started heading north for the actual Boardwalk. Okay, game plan time. I should be able to get a map, but what do I do next?

Well, first, I need to figure out my stats. How much health and PP I had, my attributes or their modifiers, and my skillset and powerset. Then, I need to figure out what faction I'm allying myself with for the next month or more, and find a place to sleep. Plus, I should write down everything I remember of the rules.

Thank God I'm a nerd with a great systemic memory.

So, attributes. If this is a fanfic, the readers probably know them, but I sure as hell don't. Then again, I don't seem to have changed much, so he must have either gotten pretty average rolls, or just assigned me stats based on our real body. So what stats describe me?

I'm 6'1", and while I don't look it, I weigh a lot. Hence my username of choice. That said, I'm not above average strength, as most of my muscle mass is tied up supporting my weight. I'm surprisingly athletic, but it just doesn't come off. Anyway, I'll assume average Strength. Dexterity? Probably average to below-average. I have bad reflexes, and while I'm flexible for my size, I have a bad case of butterfingers to drag down the average. I'd guess them at 11 and 9, respectively.

Intelligence should be fairly high. I'm no genius, but I'm definitely well above average, with a gift for memorizing complex systems and visualizing webs of causality. Charisma is harder, because while I can be convincing in an argument, I also fail to be convincing pretty often. Most of that is intelligent arguments instead of other methods of persuasion. So 15 Int, 10 Cha, maybe?

Wisdom and Constitution. This is where the stats will probably be wrong, because SWN has a prime attribute system. Real me gets to raise one of my classes' prime attributes to above average. That said, while both are great to raise, I know which I would raise. Constitution will boost both my PP and my HP by 1 point per level, where Wisdom will only boost the PP. If I was going for my real attribute scores, I could guess somewhere around 9 Wisdom (While I'm intelligent, it often takes me a while to make a smart decision), and 7 Constitution (I'm not the healthiest person). Boosting the latter to 14 was only logical.

Which is convenient, because the whole "insane Torched me" plan requires my Wisdom to hit 3 first. If Con hits 3, I just die, and can't be brought back to life.

So, my stats are probably average, with Intelligence and Constitution above average and giving me bonuses. I had 2 PP, and likely somewhere between 2 and 5 HP. Unless, of course, he really did roll random, in which case… I've got nothing. For now, I would assume that I'm right, until I get screwed by being wrong.

Powers have to wait, obviously. So, my skills. I've already used one, at least. Either Pretech, Postech or Maltech. Unfortunately, skills are not limited to those you actually have points in, so I might have just gotten really lucky. I had no idea where to even start figuring out my skills. I guess I just have to wait until I level up. Unless…

I pulled out my commpad again. Maybe, since this is 'my' phone, it has notes on my background and training?

The menus were unfamiliar, hard to navigate, and occasionally lapsed into Japanese (Which I was surprised to find myself fluent in. Point towards either high Intelligence or Language skill.) Still, I managed to find a note-taking section in the file system, and sure enough, I had my information, courtesy of the backstory version of myself.

'I'm' a scientific researcher, and 'I' went to a psychic academy as well. 'I've' even been so kind as to list down the skills I've become familiar with, in the form of well-organized folders full of study materials and spreadsheets. Backstory me had been working with pretech, medical, and psitech technology and weaponry, and had a separate folder with basic scientific data and information. I should have a few more skills, but there's no more information to be found in the files, and I can't recall the exact skill packages that Researcher and Academy Gradutate give, beyond a vague guess that I might have a point in persuade or something.

Still, I've learned some important information: Real Me isn't a complete dick. He made me an effective tinker, and more importantly, I almost definitely can make weaponry that works with my powers.

I scrolled onward. Psychics get trained in the very basics of every discipline, but I should have two powers, and one should be a specialty. All I have to do is find that and-

"Ohshitsorry!" I walked into someone, knocking us both over. My commpad went skittering away, and her bag fell too. We untangled ourselves, and I put out a hand to help her up.

 **Perception Check (Int): Rolled 4+1 vs. difficulty 7. Fail.**

"I'm sorry, I was distracted," the diminutive olive-skinned woman said as she climbed to her feet. I waved her off, grabbing her bag and handing it to her. "No worries, I was too. Need to stop walking with my phone in my face." I looked around, spotting it over by a hydrant nearby. "Well, have a nice day. Sorry for bumping into you!" I waved as I trotted over to my commpad, and went on my way.

Right, so my powers. According to my handy little commpad, 'I' specialized in Telekinesis, and learned a bit of Teleportation. So, I was primarily gonna be a telekinetic. I could work with that. From what I remembered, it was a decent, well-rounded power tree, although it lacked the temporary invulnerability that some other trees escalated to. My next few levels would definitely be heading for healing powers, though.

I put away my shiny future phone, and stepped up my walking speed. I needed a map, and I needed some cash. So, ways to gain cash, experience, and not fight people…

Dammit, I needed a job. The irony was just perfect. Freaking Walmart didn't want to deal with my sleep schedule IRL, so good luck getting one in a few days here.

Other ideas, c'mon. I could donate blood or plasma? No, I needed an I.D. for that. Do yard work? Maybe, but it'd be really slow. I really needed some technology to mess with.

God, this would be so much easier if I could just go to the Protectorate. Lots of resources, a place to stay… permanent internment when I had to choose between lying or telling the truth about my situation.

An idea formed in my head. A crazy, amazing idea. But first… screw the bus lines, and screw the map.

I asked someone for directions to the nearest library.

More walking. _Yay._

* * *

Writing Lore...

* * *

Ah, the library. My long-lost fortress of reading material both informative and imaginative. More importantly to my current plans, a place with publicly accessible computers and internet. I had yet to figure out how to connect my commpad to a pirated data connection, so this would be a vital resource.

I quickly found Google, set up an email, made a throwaway on PHO. Forget information security for now, because it wasn't like I had an identity to protect.

Next step, an old fan favorite: convince minor supervillains to be my friends.

No, not the Undersiders. Uber and Leet.

The dynamic duo weren't exactly my best option; contrary to fanon, they were probably best described as abrasive, screwed-up individuals with a gaming theme. The names really were fitting; commonly associated with gamers that were way too 'pro' to be good sports about either winning or losing. Still, they had some positive points.

For one, they had a tinker, one who would have plenty of unsafe or broken Tinkertech for me to repurpose. They were small-time, so I could probably pass unnoticed in my short villain career. Uber might be a useful ally when it came to training later on. Perhaps most importantly, though, they had recently royally fucked their public image, thanks to the whole Bakuda fight. That put them in a prime position to be on the receiving end of the Persuade skill, arguing how a change in direction might save them from infamy.

Their contact info was listed on their website, too, which made it really convenient to send them an email.

* * *

To: XxUB3RG4MR5xX

Subject: URGENT: Seeking a team, or some help.

Hello, Uber and L33t. I'm a fan of sorts, and am looking for a team. I know you guys are a duo, but if you'll hear me out, I think our powers may align quite well. Thanks to the recent unrest, I find myself without a place to stay, and in exchange for a couch to crash on and access to some broken tech, I think I can help you guys out in the long term. Plus, I'd love to take you on in some Smash Bros.

If you want to meet, please reply with a time and location. I'll come alone, and all that jazz.

-TheFatOne

* * *

 **Persuade Check (Cha): Rolled 10+0 vs. difficulty 10. Pass.**

Time to wait. I spent my time checking out the internet of Earth Bet. Weirdly, PHO was actually about as predominant as something like Reddit: any news that involved parahumans made its way onto the boards, and parahumans dominated the news.

I quickly grew bored, though, and set about learning the commpad's many features. The thing basically turned out to be a completely unlocked, super-versatile phone, but without any apps to work with I was stuck to basic functions. The most advanced features were the network features and the battery. The thing basically showed every non-encrypted connection as an open one, meaning that I could bum data, access wifi, and even access radio and Bluetooth signals with ease. As to battery life: there wasn't even a meter for it. The thing didn't need to charge; it just functioned. Future space magic tech for the win.

Thank God, it has a browser that still runs http.

I spent the next hour or so getting fully familiarized with the interface. Eventually, I checked my email with it. A reply waited for me.

* * *

From: XxUB3RG4MR5xX

Subject: Re: URGENT: Seeking a team, or some help.

TheFatOne, we're interested to see what you have to offer, but we'll have to discuss terms. You understand if we're skeptical, and we aren't sure we want a third member.

If you are actually interested, meet us at 10pm on the corner of Lars Bertrom and 7th. Come unarmed, mask on, and alone. We will be armed, but only for our own safety. You're on your own if this turns into a fight.

Send a confirmation email if you are still coming. The terms are non-negotiable.

-U&L

* * *

Coming unarmed was a bit harsh, but I guess I could just leave my monoblade in my backpack. It wasn't exactly smart to carry around a ten-inch combat knife, after all; I'd already put it away before coming in the library. I needed a mask, but that was hopefully not that big of a deal. I shot back a confirmation email.

Sighing, I dug myself out of the nook. I had to get moving if I was gonna have anything to eat today. Food pantries are first come, first serve, and with a bombing crisis in town, they'd probably be serving a lot of people.

Living off the kindness of others. Story of my life.

* * *

Generating NPCs...

* * *

I walked into Immaculata's doors, and got in line. The smell of chili filled the recreation building, and smiling congregation members and volunteer parents were walking around and managing people. The basketball court that filled up the bottom floor of the building was festooned with chairs and foam gym mats.

It was familiar. I'd grown up in a Christian private school atmosphere, and while they'd never been a disaster relief location, we'd had plenty of potlucks. My family had been there on sponsorships, so we tried to give back when we could.

The line queued forward, and I came up to the table. The lady sitting at it turned to me, saying a rather rehearsed speech. She'd probably given fifty times already.

"Welcome! I'm Laura Stephens, Dean of Students. Before you continue, you need to fill out this short form."

I took the pen and began filling it all out, with a combination of real-world and completely fictional information. I chose to go by the name Grant Mitchell. Close enough to my real name, but different enough, too. After I finished, I turned it over to her, and said, "Sorry, but I lost my wallet, so I don't have any ID." She smiled, looking up from my form and placing it in a pile. "That's fine, no problems there. Enjoy the food and fellowship, Mr. Mitchell." I smiled back, nodded, and made my way to the food line.

Around me, conversations were constantly going on and dying out. People talking about hurt or lost loved ones, missing belongings, friends they couldn't get a hold of. All of it painting a picture of a city in crisis. I felt legitimately bad that I wasn't out helping, but I had to think of the long run here. Bakuda would be defeated whether I helped or not, but the world as a whole would benefit if I started reverse-engineering postech or pretech, and that needed me alive.

I also felt bad for pretending to be a victim, but that was the GM's fault, dropping me in there with next to no resources.

I must have been scowling, because a black-haired man walking by put a hand on my shoulder, striking up a conversation. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah," I sighed, "Just thinking about stuff."

"I get it. All the chaos, there's a lot going on." He took his hand off my shoulder, offering a handshake instead. "I'm Mark."

"Grant," I said, shaking the proffered hand. "Nice to meet you, Mark."

"I haven't seen you around here before, are you a parent?"

"No, just a walk-in, in need of some classic Christian charity. You know how it is."

"Yeah, I guess I do." I moved forward, and he followed. "So, are you a believer?"

I laughed. "Probably not as much as I should be, but yes. Unfortunately, I'm a Lutheran, born and raised." Brave words to say at a Catholic school.

"Ah, so I guess we can't be friends, then," he replied with good humor, "Really a shame."

"Oh, certainly," I agreed, "a shame. But yeah, I used to be really big on church, and had to stop."

"Lost interest?"

"Medical reasons. My sleep schedule has a mind of its own, so I'm often either asleep or going to sleep during service times." I also wasn't entirely sure what I believed, but that wasn't something to say unless I wanted a theological debate.

I'd flirted with atheism and agnosticism, but I'd eventually just shrugged and figured there was nothing to lose by believing in Jesus anyway. Either there was an afterlife of some kind, or the unfeeling void, and only one of those options rewarded you for believing in it. I wasn't going to push my beliefs on others, and wasn't judging other beliefs or lack thereof; I just tried to be a good person, and believed what I wanted to.

"That's unfortunate." The sleep thing, right.

"I'm used to it. Makes holding a normal job extremely difficult, but there's nothing I can do about it." I shrugged. "It has some upsides. Few people realize how much stuff there is to do at strange hours of the day. Cities never sleep, and a book is good at any time of day, so I'm never really bored."

"That does sound interesting." I walked up to the serving station, and started filling my bowl. "Well, I'll leave you to it. Come find me if you need anything." He turned to leave.

"Actually," I said, dishing a slice of garlic bread into my chili and turning his way, "I could use a ride, if you're okay with that. Or a few bucks for bus fare and stuff. Lost my wallet." God, I really hated lying to these people.

 **Persuade Check (Cha): Rolled 8+0 vs. difficulty 7. Pass.**

He smiled. "I might just be able to help you out with that."

* * *

A/N: You won't believe me, but I actually rolled his Attribute scores before I posted the first chapter, instead of doing the method he used. He's incredibly freaking lucky.

He guessed 12, 9, 15, 10, 9, 7(to 14), which is fairly representative of myself. I wrote this before I rolled up his real stats, planning to have the different scores be a stumbling point, and editing it into the chapter afterward.

I rolled 12, 10, 16, 12, 10, 6(to 14), which is a straight, if minor, upgrade. I can't even.


	3. Awoken 1-3

Awoken 1.3

Mark dropped me off a few hours later, having convinced me to help serve food in the meantime.

"You're sure this is the place?" he asked as I unbuckled my seatbelt. "I can take you farther, if you need to."

"No, it's fine. I'm meeting some friends here in a few hours." At least, I hoped they'd be friendly. This could go pear-shaped very quickly, otherwise. "I'll find plenty to do in the meantime." I opened the door, got out, and turned back in. "Thanks, Mark. You've really helped me out."

"Think nothing of it. It's what I do. In fact," he dug into his pocket, pulling out a bill. "Here."

"Mark…"

"No, I insist. Pay me back by showing others some kindness too."

I reluctantly took the 20. "I'll be sure to, in that case." I definitely would, if things went to plan. "I owe you for this, too."

"No, you don't, but it would be good to see you in church tomorrow. I've got to get back."

I winced a bit. I almost certainly wasn't gonna be at that service, one way or another. "Okay. Safe driving," I replied, not voicing my doubts. "And thanks again." I shut the door, and he drove off.

"Okay," I said to the evening air, "Now what?"

I ended up just walking around a while. Lars Bertrom Street was in the Commercial district, so I took my time window shopping. Eventually, I spotted a nice little nerd shop, and bought a cheap but serviceable cloth mask, the 'faceless hood' kind. It really sucked, but until I could reinvent a Mindwall Helmet from scratch (and that might never happen), it would have to do. Plus, the black stretchy fabric tied into my futuristic clothing quite nicely.

Pocketing my 8 bucks change after reminding myself that yes, they do indeed use dollar coins in this universe, no the cashier isn't handing me quarters, thank you sir, I walked out of the store. Finding a bench that was two blocks down from 7th street, I dug out my commpad once more. I spent the next few hours jotting down what I remembered of the rules, skills, etc. I wasn't entirely clear on the psychic class skills, but I remembered most of the dice rolls and equipment stats fairly well. I did know exactly what every psychic power could do; since I knew that I shouldn't, I figured this was a compromise. I still noted them down, building the trees for later consideration.

Finally, the time came. I stood up, looked around, and ducked into an alcove to don my mask. Making my way over to the intersection, I leaned against a wall outside a clothing boutique and waited.

Ten minutes later, the duo showed up, decked out in pretty standard COD overdone military uniforms. I didn't see a camera drone, so this was likely a private affair. Good.

I broke from the wall, casually making my way across the small intersection. The bigger one- Uber, I imagined- raised his gun slightly, and I stopped, raising my hands to somewhere between 'calm down' and 'please don't shoot me'.

"Stay back. No funny business," Uber said, lowering the gun.

I raised my voice. "How am I supposed to talk privately from way over here?"

Leet shrugged. "Convince us, then we can talk. Otherwise we walk."

Okay, a persuade check. Please don't fail me now.

 ** **Persuade Check (Cha): Rolled 5+0 vs. difficulty 8. Fail.****

"I… I'm not from here. No allies, no money, nothing. I need some help." Dammitall.

"So, you're just looking to freeload off some losers? Good fucking pitch."

"No, no, that came out wrong." They were turning to go. Fuck the persuade skill. Truth time. "I think I can help Leet with his tech problems!"

They stopped, and turned back. I already knew what they were going to say.

"Bullshit," they said in unison.

"It's true. I think I can reverse engineer tech to some degree, but I need help and support or I'll never get anywhere. I figured we could help each other out!"

They turned and started whispering to each other. Shit, this was fucking tense. Maybe the GM thought writing a story with dice rolls was interesting, but for God's sake, at least choose between the main character being aware of the results, or completely unaware that their fate was ruled by randomness. This was just hell.

They turned back to me. Uber spoke up. "Come on. We're going somewhere less public."

* * *

Making Travel Checks...

* * *

A warehouse? How cliché can you get? I mean, the only reason we weren't in the Boat Graveyard was because that was clear across town.

One thing was sure. I was really getting tired of walking. Sore feet tomorrow, for sure.

The duo turned around as I pulled the door shut behind me. Leet spoke first. "Okay, explain. What the hell do you mean, you can help me with my tech?"

I'd been thinking about how to answer this as we walked in silence, and eventually had decided on some discretion. As much as I knew they likely had played a tabletop game before, that was all the more reason to __not__ tell them I was one. Especially as a mage-type character: the phrase 'linear fighter, geometric wizard' applied, and I didn't need them to know how powerful I had the potential to be. Plus, it would be good to save my psychic powers for a rainy day; I didn't want to be a villain forever, and a new powerset would make obscuring my past that much easier.

"Right, my power," I began, "basically makes me a super-scientist." I was intentionally wording it poorly; making a point by downplaying it, so they would be more inclined to take me in when I finished. The Intelligent approach instead of the Charismatic one.

 ** **Persuade Check (Int): Rolled 8+1 vs. difficulty 8. Pass.****

Leet scoffed. "No shit, you're a tinker. Why do you think that would help?" Yup, just as planned. Guess I made the persuade check.

"Not a Tinker," I clarified, "A Thinker. Learning ability and inventiveness, reverse engineering, a few other skills." I paused for effect. "I have no tech tree, no arbitrary specialization. Just science, and the capacity to learn."

"…Holy shit." Leet's gun arm was slack. Hook.

I smiled behind the stupid cloth mask. "So, you can see why I wanna team up with the two guys who can build everything and be good at anything. I'm not normally one for villainy; more of a nuetral good, if you know what I mean; but I figured we could help each other out. Besides, you guys could use something to boost your reputation." That was the line; give them a reason why I'm doing this. I shrugged as I continued to the sinker. "Here's my solution: You let me join your team for a month, I do my best to help you guys in return for a place to crash, and we decide if this will work in the long term after that." After Leviathan, that is, unless I manage to butterfly that away in less than a month.

Uber interjected, "You can't just walk up and expect-" Leet cut him off with a hand on his shoulder, and took him aside again. I waited, looking around at the dark and dingy warehouse, worrying a bit when the duo got heated, wondering what I should invent first, and so on. A charger for my power cells? A weapon? Probably a weapon.

They turned back, and while Uber's lips were pressed tight, Leet was smiling. "Okay," he said, "We accept. One month, then we talk, but for now? Welcome to the group, Fatty."

 ** **Objective completed. 700 xp.****

"Thanks." I'd have to be careful around Uber at first, but I was in. "Now, let's get out of this cliché meeting place."

* * *

Designing Location...

* * *

Thankfully, they had an SUV; I probably would have cried if I had to walk anymore today. I'd walked around ten miles without prep or any recent exercise, and my legs were really starting to feel it. I quietly resolved to start exercising again, because it might mean the difference between life and death.

Then again, I was a tabletop character now; I should be able to move at 20-40 meters per six seconds when in combat, unless the GM is ignoring that rule. I know I wouldn't ignore it if I was in charge of this ride, but there was still the off chance that this was my actual reality now. So maybe just exercise for the sake of it. It couldn't hurt.

Their 'base' turned out to be a duplex just off the Boardwalk. Nice location, and certainly not somewhere I'd have expected two supervillains to live. I said as much as we walked from the SUV, now unmasked and in normal clothes.

"Thanks, I guess?" Leet sounded skeptical. "It's good that we don't have a cliché lair, but you might be disappointed when we get inside."

"Why would I be disappointed?"

Uber unlocked the door, and I got a glimpse of the living room.

"Because," Leet said, "We don't clean much."

The living room was a trash heap straight out of some kind of neckbeard's home décor magazine.

"Yay," I said flatly. "Truly, you two are at the forefront of abolishing gamer stereotypes. I am honored to be a part of such a progressive team."

"Oh, shut up and grab some pizza boxes. It's not like we ever have guests over."

I grabbed some of the aforementioned boxes, piling them high on one hand as I continued. "Fair, but not an excuse. Pizza boxes are not a substitute for tables." I grabbed one of the 2-liter bottles and stuffed it into the crook of my box-holding arm. "This is ridiculous. Just recycle them."

Uber responded this time. "You think we're gonna haul every pizza box we get down to the recycling center?"

Right, east coast. They didn't do street service here, I guess. "Maybe? It's better than making your duplex smell like rotting tomato sauce and Mountain Dew." I dumped the load in Uber's trash bag. "I'm not a clean freak or anything, but this is basic renting etiquette. And don't give me the supervillain excuse, you guys aren't on the clock."

Leet sighed. "Yes, mom. We'll try to be better." We spent the next few minutes gathering trash, occasionally letting out sounds of disgust or remarking at something found. Eventually, I asked if they had a vacuum, sighed when the obvious answer was given, and helped tie off bags.

After that, we plopped onto the couch. Leet walked over and handed out some controllers. "Sorry, but you get the gimp controller," he said as he passed me one, "The stick doesn't return to center. N64 controllers are hard to find."

"No problem," I said as I took it, "I'm familiar with the issue. Had a N64 myself."

We fired up Smash Bros. 64, picking characters. Uber took Captain Falcon, Leet took Samus, and I ran my main: Kirby.

"Really?" Leet said, then shrugged. "Okay then." He hit random map, and the Pokémon stage loaded up.

"So," I said as the game started, "Names?"

"I'm Zach," Leet said, as I broke into a sprint, ramming into Falcon.

"Richard," Uber followed, responding to my attack with a down-special.

"And I'm Grant." I floated my way clear across the map and turned into a rock, smashing Samus Falcon's way. Let them fight it out; I had my eye on a capsule. Falcon punched a Falcon Punch, and I threw the capsule to chain off the attack, knocking Samus even higher. Falco and I rushed to grab the hammer that popped out, but he was too focused on the item. I paused just before the hammer, sucking him in as he grabbed it, and spat him off the roof, into the gap between buildings. The extra weight of the hammer did the rest. 1 life down, four to go.

I taunted for good measure, then promptly got kicked in the face for it by an angry Samus.

Ah, Smash. How I missed you.

* * *

Inventing New Items...

* * *

We played a few games, till about midnight, then Richard had decided to hit the sack. Zach, however, was a tinker who had been promised tinker things, and upon finding out that I was probably good till at least 3 or 4, he'd escorted me to the SUV and driven to a much shittier part of town. We eventually arrived at an abandoned car repair shop, an old Jiffy Lube or something, and he snuck us inside.

"So, here's the workshop," Zach said, "Let me show you around."

The place was in surprisingly good shape. Outside, it was shabby and grey, with peeling paint and plywood windows, but the garage area was swept clean and dotted with various large workstations, and tools both recognizable and completely unknown to me. The one notable exception to the cleanliness; there were piles of futuristic tech and game items lining the back wall.

"Okay, the workstations are, in order," he began pointing them out, "Parts, welding, machining, circuitry, microcircuitry, programming, forging, general chemistry, drafting, and woodworking. The lifts can be reconfigured for big jobs, too."

I raised an eyebrow. "Woodworking?"

He scowled. "Some stuff needs the decorative touch!"

"Fair enough." I walked over to the scrap, quietly hoping for good rolls in my near future. Stroking my goatee, I looked over the pile. "Okay, I need something on the more basic side of things, preferably with minimal chance of exploding." I've only messed with Tinkertech once, and I got lucky that time. "I also need an advanced physics textbook or something, and some information on your power." That last bit was not actually necessary; I just needed a way to point out that his power was deliberately sabotaging him.

"I don't have the textbook, but you can use the programming station to look up stuff, I guess." Zach crouched down, shuffling through the pile a bit, and dug out an item that I instantly recognized as one of the discs from Tron. "This should work for the tech, I guess."

I took it, and made my way over to the multi-monitor setup or the programming station. "I'll be a bit, sorry. Gotta reacquaint myself with the fundamental forces."

"No problem, I guess. I'll figure out something to do."

I turned to the computer, adjusted my glasses, and began searching for physics videos, articles, and papers. As I did so, I started thinking about my goals.

So, science and tech. SWN has some pretty crazy sci-fi stuff going on, and I had a bunch of stuff I needed to do to tap into that.

It all started with this one guy, Doctor Tiberius Crohn. I had a character who worshipped him once. Great mind. Completely insane, but you tend to get that with mad scientists. According to the story, around 2100, Dr. Crohn discovered the Spike Drive, the game's FTL travel system, singlehandedly. He did so in secret, while in exile on a bombed-out, irradiated Greenland, over the course of several years. The story gets crazier from there, but the point is that a crazy physicist, with no access to future tech and no way to confirm his findings, managed to do the impossible, and catapulted humanity to the stars.

The thing is, Spike Drives, and by extension psychic powers (which are related to the form of travel), run on expanded laws of physics, ones based on completely insane assumptions about the universe. Vanilla physics would only help me so far. Plus, I had no idea how Metadimensional physics and powers would interact with the fourth-dimensional powers of the Entities.

If I was ever going to reach my full potential, I had to do three things, and I had to do them in less than a decade.

One, I had to invent metadimensional physics, creating a single, unified system that would open the gateway to new heights of technology and power. Ironically, this should be the easiest of my tasks- I knew it was possible, and 'I' had the background and skills for it, so it should be far from impossible. It was probably just a matter of time.

Second, and most time-consuming and dangerous by far: I had to redevelop hundreds of years of progress in the psychic disciplines. This would mean mastering several of the existing power trees, developing new powers, improving my fine manipulation and physics fuckery using every trick in the book, and creating new tricks when old ones were insufficient. My psitech skill should help with this, allowing me to mess with tech that channeled and altered metadimensional effects to learn more about the effects themselves; but until I had a metadimensional unified field theory, my chances of building more than the most rudimentary of psitech weaponry would be slim to none. Plus, even with psitech at hand, it would take years of leveling and training to complete my next objective, and messing around with wisdom-and-constitution-destroying energies would probably be bad for my health in general. And again, to do any of that, I had to kill Jack Slash and cancel the apocalypse, and boy was I looking forward to that!

My third and final, end goal: I had to reinvent future technology. Using my knowledge of metadimensional energy and mastery of psychic powers, I would recreate the techniques that allowed advanced pretech to bend physics over its knee and make it scream for mercy. I had the Pretech skill, which was good, because you have to have that skill already in order to advance the skill on your own, without a trainer. Tinkertech seemed to count, but it was always going to be missing vital parts, and I would have to bridge those gaps with reproduceable technology.

I could do all this from all sorts of different places. Maybe I could join the Guild? Go smack some sense into Cauldron? Be a loner? Hell, I could stay with Uber and Leet, although they might resent me for founding the relationship on lies. I had no idea what my plans were after Leviathan, besides killing Jack and the aforementioned rewrite of everything science thought it knew.

I did know one thing, actually: If I survived Golden Morning without being reduced to an insane, reality-warping monster, then the human race would go straight from their doomsday to a galaxy-spanning, dimension-jumping, superpower-wielding futuristic society.

But, you know, no pressure.


	4. Awoken 1-4

Awoken 1.4

Two hours later, at clear past three in the morning, I turned away from the screens. "Zach?" I called out.

"Yeah? I'm over here!"

I stood up, cracked my neck, and made my way over to the woodworking table. He was sitting in a chair, whittling away at a former block of wood. He looked up as I came closer. "You done with your little study session?"

"For now," I said, pulling up a chair, "I think so. I've had a few ideas, but nothing huge yet, and I want to get something done tonight."

"Finally. So," he said, leaning forward and setting the knife and wood aside, "How can I help you help me?"

Okay, time to do boring stuff. You can skip this. "Walk me through your power, then we can talk about the Tinkertech."

He explained, in a whole lot of words, that his power lets him make anything, once, and that it can cut off tech trees if he isn't careful. I, in turn, nodded and uhuh'd the whole way through, a skill I'd perfected back in high school alongside sleeping while standing. (First period classes and undiagnosed sleep disorders don't mix.)

"So, crazy thought, bad pitch," I said after he finished.

"Yeah?" he said, caution staining his voice.

"Have you tried, umm… not being careful? Because it sounds like your specialty isn't building things once, at least to me. It sounds more like building new things to solve problems, like some sort of crazy Eidolon tinker."

He stared at me. Kept staring. Finally, he spoke. "So you think I should be building new gear instead of trying to maintain old gear," he said flatly, "until I run out of stuff to build?"

"More or less."

"Great suggestion," he said with sarcasm, "I'll get right on that."

"I'm serious! Have you ever built a power source based on dirt, for instance? What about nanites, or an AI? I'm looking at that pile, and all I see is technology."

"I'm a tinker! I BUILD TECHNOLOGY!"

"No," I replied, "Tinkers create and build whatever their specialty is. And yours is everything, not just every electricity-based technology."

That made him go quiet.

I headed off the train of thought, because we could always come back to it tomorrow. "We'll set that discussion aside for now, though. No time for it tonight, I'm gonna be out like a light in about an hour or so. For now, walk me through this Tron disc." I shook the thing for emphasis.

We walked over to the circuitry station, a large, stone-topped lab table with several large scorch marks and a few precision tools scattered atop it. Zach set down the disc, and started stripping the outer shell.

"This thing does three things. It has a toggleable edge blade, to cut stuff that it hits. It has a kinetic redirector, that makes it bounce and fly really efficiently, or block things when held. And it has a seeking feature, so it always tries to return to its user after going a certain distance or hitting a certain number of things."

"So, just like a Tron disc."

"Exactly." He removed the shell. "The three functions are pretty simple, but that's the problem I'm having. Simple things mean more stuff I can't build. You can see how many things I've built, so you can imagine how many avenues I've used up."

You have no idea, buddy.

Another thought struck me, and I laughed a bit.

"What?"

"I just realized that yesterday, I wouldn't have called a kinetic redirector 'simple'." I would have called it science fiction, to be honest, even though I now had one to repair.

"Yeah, you kinda get used to it in my- our, line of work."

"I guess so," I said. Leaning forward to get a closer look at the device, I studied the structure a bit. I could see some of the damage, but I needed some tools to really assess the full extent of the device's problems. "Anyway, let me take a look here." I reached for my metatool, and popped out a probing tool.

 **Tech/Pretech Check (Int): Rolled 9+1 vs. difficulty 10. Pass.**

I had a pretty good grasp on what each component did. Skill check success!

"So, what is that thing on your arm, anyway?"

I pretended to study the device for a bit, to keep up the illusion. I spent the time mostly poking the probe at the bits where the parts sort of stopped making sense, the bits of eldritch godling gluing together the machine. Tumors to be excised.

"This," I said, poking one such spot, noting the way the two parts seemed to do conflicting jobs, "is a metatool. It's got a bunch of basic tools for the aspiring tech repairman. Not the greatest item, but it is handy in a pinch."

"Sounds useful."

"Not as much as you'd think, but it's serving me well enough." I finally stopped poking stuff, and sat back a moment, popping my neck again. "Well, I can get an idea of what's going on here," I said, stretching.

"Really? I wasn't sure you would actually have anything."

"Yeah, I can sort of puzzle it out. I can definitely see why Tinkertech isn't reproducible, too. Even the parts that make sense are decades ahead of the norm in this thing, and there's parts that seem almost deliberately broken."

"Where?" He leaned in, peering at the machine. "Show me."

I pointed to the main fault that my skill check had determined was not just nonsense. "See the conduit here, the burned out one? The power going through that point could only have reached that level if it had been conveying the power of a fairly powerful explosion, and all the other conduits would have burned out too." I moved the probe to another point. "This microchip, and several like it, are placed in just the right proximity to the power source that they can overheat if it runs too long, but only if the power source is the specific kind you have here, which throws out extra heat in that specific direction." I poked one of the god-bits, then another. "And these points, which are scattered throughout the machine, are just nonsense-tech, yet they seem to be vital to function despite their lack of actual functionality. That stuff, I'd guess, is the copy-protection tinkers have, and I might be able to repair the rest if I replace those bits somehow."

I turned to him, noting the look of worry he had on his face as he looked up from his machine to me. "I think I have an idea of what's wrong here, though, on a more general scale." I couldn't hide it from him. This was a matter of life and death, and he was too important to the long term to risk failure.

Plus, I was starting to like him. Which made it harder to break the news.

"What?" He sounded worried, too. Too late to turn back now. I sighed, and began to talk.

"I think your power is deliberately sabotaging you. Because you're using it wrong, your power is feeding you less safe designs, and making more of them fail outright. I'm sorry, but the rest… My theory on your power earlier? That's my best guess. I can only recommend that you start innovating like crazy, or you're gonna kill yourself."

"A-are you sure?" Okay, strike worry. That was his terrified face, if his voice was anything to go by. Shit.

"No," I lied, "But it's a definite possibility."

"Shit!" he said, standing up and pacing. "Shit, shit, shitfucking dammit!" He turned to me, yelling to vent. "You know how careful I've been!? Every build, every game theme, it was all a way to keep track of things! Every time I build a fucking toaster, it sets me back, and now you're saying my stuff is gonna kill me? Fuck!" Just like that, he slumped into a chair. "Fuck," he repeated, "It's just not fair."

Jesus, I couldn't even think of what to say that didn't sound insensitive as fuck. I was used to my life being ruled by tons of minor handicaps. The new nature of my existence didn't help, and I didn't look forward to probable insanity or the inevitable series of bad rolls, but I'd kind of learned to take that kind of shit in stride, because my normal life was defined by setbacks and failure. I had no real reference point to work from here. Still, I had to try.

"Zach, it's not as bad as it sounds."

His head shot up, and he spat the words when he spoke. "Where the fuck do you get off sayi-"

"Calm the fuck down!" I yelled, standing up abruptly. That got him to shut up, so I continued. "It's not the end of the world. Just a setback. I'm gonna help you through this, and through the mess with that crazy bomber bitch, and whatever the fuck comes next, okay? You guys are showing me a lot of trust, and I'm gonna pay it back. For tonight, let's go back, get some rest; take some sleeping pills if you have to. Tomorrow, we try to figure this shit out, and we keep doing that, day by day, until we have shit sorted again. Got it?"

 **Persuade Check: Rolled 9+0 vs. difficulty 8. Pass.**

He took a minute to reply, and his tone was one of defeat when he did. "Okay. We'll get it tomorrow. Let's head back." With that said, he got up and headed for the exit. I followed behind, shutting the lights off as I passed the threshold.

The drive to the duplex was as quiet as a grave.

* * *

Passing the Night...

* * *

The next morning, I woke up as normal: alert in moments, slight headache, with absolutely no idea what time it was, and in desperate need of a shower. It's weird, but my first thoughts on waking were that I'd forgotten to buy a pack of gum while getting my cheap mask, and a slight regret for missing the service up at Immaculata, which quickly passed. I made my way to the bathroom, absently noting the time as 2:15 on Richard's bedroom clock. No sign of him, so I guess he went out.

Stepping into the bathroom, I closed the door, and faced the mirror for a moment. Staring back, of course, was my face; strong chin, slightly overgrown dark brown hair, coppery goatee and mustache, gray eyes, and all the little imperfections and skin problems I was familiar with, splotching across my face like a mild but unyielding sunburn. I could be considered fairly handsome without the skin problems and the extra weight, but personally, I could care less. I was still me, for better or worse.

I scratched absently at my cheek, and looked away from the mirror as I got ready for my shower. I was dwelling on things, somewhere in the back of my mind. A little voice, telling me to just give up, that I should get my shower and walk out, find a new place, and just live day to day. I knew it was the depression talking, but I also knew from experience that it was very convincing. It didn't exactly rule my old life, but it was there to drag my optimistic thoughts into darker places, and I was always worse about it when I was tired.

My shower was quick and quiet, ruled by what-if scenarios running through my head like the water running through my hair. Ways Leviathan could go, from taking him on with a telekinetic gauss rifle and dying horribly to sitting in a bunker and feeling bad for myself. The Slaughterhouse 9 could be even worse: I just had no idea how to confront some of their problems, especially Crawler, Shatterbird, and Mannequin, without relying on too much coincidence to occur.

I worried and ran scenarios on my leveling speed, because I had no idea how fast I was gaining xp. I could be level 2 or 4 by the time Levi got here, and I needed the 4 more than the 2. Should I be going out and saving cats? Was there a way to get roleplay xp? Why was I not allowed to know my rolls or see my character sheet?

I sighed, gave up, dried off, and reached for the strange fabric that was my only outfit in the whole world. My mind was running more scenarios and questions before I had my future-clothes back on.

Turning back to the mirror, I studied my face again, noting that I needed a razor and a toothbrush. One part of my brain encouraged myself as I locked eyes with my reflection, while another part imagined all the horrible ways I would die and leave those eyes lifeless and dull. Yet another part quietly reminded me that if I died, nobody would miss me, because I had no family here. My mother existed, but she could be anything now, instead of a poor single mother who had the heart to support her jobless adult son.

I was familiar with the term 'falling through the cracks.' That thing that happened to some people, where they just couldn't catch a break. I used to be sort of the opposite: someone who was hanging onto the edges, held up by people who cared about me, even as I slipped further and further in. I hated it, because I knew I was dragging them down with me, but I had nothing to work with. All I could do was accept their kindness, and try my best to pay them back someday.

Here? I had no home, no family to be a part of. No belongings beyond the few items sitting in the backpack out there. No friends to call and hang out with. No stupid, evil, lovable cat to nip at my heels, no familiar music or reading material, no stories to write for. I would never see a familiar face again.

All I had were my own problems, and my newfound powers. Ahead of me were pain, years of constant, daily grinding, and the distinct possibility of death, or worse, insanity.

I sighed again, popped my back and neck, put on my glasses, and walked out of the bathroom. There was no point to being here if I wasn't doing something to help others, and there was no point dwelling on my eventual death, whenever it came.

Making my way to the kitchen, I dug out a skillet and bowl, and started prepping ingredients for some scrambled eggs.

Zach had probably neglected to take sleeping pills last night, if I had him pegged right. I really felt bad for the way I'd handled that. He was the stabilizer of the duo, the one who had kept Uber from going bad, and I'd fucked with his head less than six hours after meeting him. Not that it wasn't a good thing; now the world would have a tinker who not only could make anything, but would, and I could eventually use that to advance all mankind. I just worried about him as a person.

Therapy. We should all get therapy. I wryly thought of one of my fanfics, imagined getting Yamada in on this action. It'd be the Eidolon thing all over again. 'Sveta's not a monster, the tinker who thinks the world might be fictional is!'

"Why does my brain do this?" I mumbled, more to stop my train of thought than anything, "Deep, philosophical questions, what-ifs, and then stupid shit like that." I checked the cabinet, groaned in horror at the lack of spices, muttered a curse at the discovery that they only had paper dishes, and made a mental note to civilize these two as I vengefully grabbed the black pepper. I still had my pride as a decent cook, and if I was gonna be a live-in houseguest, I was gonna make the shit out of these eggs.

I turned my thoughts to other things. Mainly, I needed short-term priorities. Muttering to myself, I poured the egg mixture into the skillet.

"Well, I could make a ramshackle psitech weapon. Probably less of a TK gauss rifle, and more an actual gauss rifle with a high-yield telekinetic crank-generator to reduce weight." Technically, it should count as a psitech weapon, unless real me was being a hardass. This was important because of the way combat bonuses worked with skills; essentially, the psitech weaponry skill would be cheaper to upgrade, and benefit from wisdom and constitution instead of strength or dexterity. Which, in turn, would let me hit stuff more often, and hit harder when I did.

I still need to test out my actual powers, too. Hmm. I'll have to think on that. I was already starting to regret my decision to keep the details of my powers from the others, but that might just be morning gloominess talking. Until I decided to change that, I'd have to find some time alone to check my powers out.

Other stuff. I was currently of the opinion that, as much as I wanted to contact Taylor and other big names, it might be better to let things happen. At least until she turned herself in. Butterflying away the person she'd become meant removing Khepri from consideration, which, in turn, meant no backup strategy if I died. Humanity would be wiped out, and it would be my fault.

I knew, making that decision, that I was dooming a girl to a life of misery and pain, loss and hardship. I really wasn't sure how to feel about that.

My mind wandered to another point, one that was fucking terrifying to consider- where is Contessa?

My first thought, as a writer, would have been to have her basically door to me, kidnap, brainwash, and level the hell out of me, and throw me at Scion when he went off. My second guess, the first notwithstanding, would have been that I had the Blank perk or something, but I'm not even sure this is a CYOA. I certainly haven't noticed any upsides or downsides that would indicate it, aside from, maybe, the Without a Map downside.

For that matter, if I don't have Blank, then did the Simurgh see me coming? Was I already fucked?

I stirred the eggs absently, trying to puzzle out the 4-D chess game of Simurgh vs. Contessa for a minute, before giving up. Real me probably had a huge plan for them, and I would not be allowed to know it from such a limited standpoint. That, or this was all real, which was pretty much the same. All I knew was that I really, really hoped I wasn't already the target of a Simurgh plot in action. Which meant I probably was. Which meant I wanted a Mindwall helmet, and all the Telepathy and Metapsionic powers, and orbital teleportation or something, because fuck that shit.

Oh, the eggs were done. Guess I should go wake up my partner in crime. Hopefully, he'd be in a better mood after I told him my plans for today.

After all, today, we were gonna fuck with physics.


	5. Awoken 1-5

Awoken 1.5

"Look, I just want you to try, okay?" God, this was frustrating. What part of the phrase 'We're gonna mess around with physics today' was boring?

Actually, I might just be a nerd.

"Look, Grant, I appreciate the support, I guess," he said, eyes on the road, "but I just don't know about this. All I've ever done is tech."

"That's why you have a problem, though. You've gotta branch out. Help me on this physics thing, and I'll help you find new directions to take your tinkering. Trust me, it's gonna be easy." I hoped it would be easy, at least.

I'd realized that Zach here had been able to do some pretty crazy stuff, in his short time in Worm. One of the more notable things, of course, being his emulation of Skitter's powers. If he could create scanning equipment that esoteric (and more importantly, hadn't done so yet), I could possibly use a variant of it, plus some of my own starting gear and a few bits of Tinkertech, to learn the fundaments of pretech and metaphysics.

I wasn't leaving him out to dry, either: he hadn't even scratched the surface of what was possible with his power. I could think of a hundred things I would be making in his shoes, and that was just with a moderate, completely non-professional understanding of physics. With his particular brand of mind-warping magic space whale bullshit at my fingertips, I would be a god.

Too bad I'm stuck with some other mind-warping space magic. Gotta work for my godhood.

We pulled up, got out, and made our way inside the shop.

"Okay," Zach said tiredly, "where do we start with this?"

I grinned widely. "We start… with some studying."

He groaned. "Why did I let you on the team?"

* * *

Cooking Ingredients...

* * *

"Okay, I might have been wrong, I'll admit it. This is some pretty great stuff."

We'd spent the past few hours watching the Bet equivalent of Youtube, trawling through science and mathematics videos. Unfortunately, Zach's workshop was not a restaurant, and as he'd informed me while we both discussed what to get, his usual fridge of snacks had broken down after he'd repaired it one too many times.

Our solution: call up Richard, and meet at Fugly's for dinner.

"I mean, the whole antimatter thing? I think I could crack the code on flipping matter to antimatter, if I gave it some thought."

"…Yeah?" I said with some hesitation. Antimatter is useful, sure, but it's also terrifying as all hell. "That's a pretty dangerous starting point, but I like it. Any ideas on containment?"

"Well, maybe using powerful antigrav fields instead of magnetic ones, or containing it in a forcefield powered by a high-grade capacitor… hmm."

I glanced forward. "Mind the road, dude. You're drifting a bit."

He corrected himself. "Thanks. Probably shouldn't think tinker stuff while driving, huh?"

"Yeah, maybe not," I said with humor. "Just remember, I could really use that scanning equipment we talked about, before you go messing around with antimatter. Might even help with that project, actually." I paused, trying to think of something else to talk about, before I triggered another distraction for my driver. "So, um… oh." I'd just thought of something on the Bakuda situation. A sensitive subject, for sure.

"What?"

"Nothing. I got an idea, but it's something all three of us need to talk about. I'll try to bring it up after." I latched on to the second pass of the thought about Uber. "Speaking of which, I've been meaning to ask… On a scale of one to ten, how much does Richard want to kick me off the team already?"

Zach laughed as we pulled into a spot. "He doesn't hate you. He's just a bit pissed off right now in general."

"You sure?" I wasn't, but I was pretty bad at reading people sometimes, especially the angry or ignorant ones. Not that he was ignorant, just angry.

"Yeah." He put the car in park, and shut off the engine. "You've only been on the team for what, twenty hours? Give him some time, he'll warm up to you a bit."

I smiled, acknowledging the point. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

We made our way into Fugly Bob's, the biggest source of clogged arteries in the Bay since the Boat Graveyard was formed. Like many things, I had a plan in mind. Making our way over to the table Richard was waiting at, I prepared myself for the conversation ahead. Things might get heated, and I needed to have a good counterargument ready.

I studied the menu in detail, deciding on a lemonade to start. When the waitress returned with our drinks, she asked, "So, what can I get for you today?"

"I'll have a Fugly Bacon with fries," Zach started, folding up his menu.

"Let's go for a Fugly Mushroom, also with fries," Richard said after a brief pause, "and can you bring us some hot sauce?"

"Sure!" She took the menus from them, then turned expectantly to me. "And for you, sir?"

"Right," I said, folding up the menu, "I'm gonna try the Challenger."

It was worth it just to hear a few nearby conversations stop. Zach and Richard had the best expressions, too.

See, the way I figured, I had a decent chance of dying in the next month, plot armor and planning be damned. After that, I still had a date with the Nine. Throw in the existential crisis of possibly being a fictional character, plus my other stressors, and you have a great setup for a slow spiral into depression. So tomorrow, I would go on a diet again, and start exercising, to bring myself to a more positive mental and physical state.

But today?

I was gonna get my face on that goddamned wall.

"The Challenger?" she said, looking slightly incredulous. "You're sure? Not the Champion?"

"Yes, I'm sure. No pickles or mustard, please." I couldn't stand pickles, or really any pickled things. Some weird quirk with their taste turned me off them.

"Yes, sir." She made the note on her pad. "It'll be a few minutes. Would you like anything else?"

"I'm good for now. You guys?" I looked to the other two, who had gone from shock to disbelief. Looking back, I smiled and said, "I think we're good for now." She nodded and walked away.

"So," Zach said, "You do realize how much food that is?"

"I have an idea, yes."

Richard continued, "And you realize this comes out of your pay if you fail?"

"I'll take that chance," I said without hesitation. Pay was very low on my priorities, now, and dammit, I was eating this burger.

Zach sighed. "Fine, then. At least we get to watch him humiliate himself."

I grinned. "I'm glad we understand each other."

We sipped our drinks a bit, not really having anything more to say. A few minutes later, their food came, and I bummed a fry or two. Pretty good. Somehow greasy, yet satisfying.

Finally, it came, in all its majestic, artery-clogging, fat-roll creating glory.

I'd taken on challenge burgers before. None were quite like this.

Four pounds of beef. A pound of cheese. A quarter of a head of lettuce, half an onion, a whole heirloom tomato. Another half-pound of bacon. A side of fries.

A seven-inch-tall, ten-inch-wide cylinder, a monument to the name of Fugly Bob.

With reverence, I picked up the knife, and cut into the oversized onion bun. Zach and Richard looked on with awe, their own burgers forgotten in the face of the Challenger's glory.

"1 hour." I raised the slice, and Richard, who had the presence of mind to get a timer ready, hovered his thumb over the button. "1 hour starts… now."

The first bite was heaven.

I'd had burgers. Great ones. The kind of burger that ruined fast food burgers for you, permanently.

This was not one of those.

This was a burger that reveled in being 'fast food'. Embraced the idea of a patty that seemed closer to being deep-fried than grilled, and managed to make it incredibly tasty, too. The meat was flavorful, the bacon thick and juicy. The veggies helped balance the fat and salt out. The bun- mmmph. Delicious.

I realized my slice was gone. Had I eaten that quickly?

"Holy shit, this is a good burger."

I cut another slice, and quickly tore into it. Meanwhile, Zach and Richard went back to their food. I soon went for a third slice, and a fourth, settling into a rhythm. A sip of lemonade to cleanse the palate, a fry or two, and another slice. I finished well over half the burger that way before I started flagging.

I began to take smaller bites, resenting the burger. I was no longer hungry, but not full either.

The third of a burger sat there, mocking me. Every bite was now a race against the clock, and against my better judgement, I continued the challenge. Another slice, larger this time, bringing the burger down to a quarter. It was still larger than your average burger, even now, but I pressed on. I'd eaten more than this before! Why was it so hard to finish?

My fries lay forgotten: they would only fill me more. My drink, too much new flavor, making it too tempting to quit. The others, holding cameras or chatting about whether I would finish in time; distractions. I cut the next slice off the middle corner, taking it apart into bite-sized pieces. After that, I took the bacon, lettuce and tomato off the remaining piece, to eat last. Picking up the cut-down sandwich, I tore into it with renewed gusto.

"Five minutes!" Richard said. The room, now mostly distracted by my Challenge, started cheering me on.

"Go! Go! Go!" one table chanted, and another quickly followed. Soon, much of this side of the restaurant had joined in. A man who I assumed was the manager walked up.

As I forced myself to finish off the last bits of the main burger, Richard called the one-minute mark. I rolled up the remaining three ingredients, which I had set aside for this very reason. The lettuce and tomato were refreshing to my palate, and the bacon kept it savory enough. I tore into the wrap, wasting no time trying to enjoy it: the end was in sight.

Thirty, twenty-five… by twenty seconds, I was on the last bite. As I bit into it, I knew the taste of victory.

"He's done it!" the manager declared, eliciting a round of applause from the crowd. As the clapping and cheers died down and they began to disperse, he asked, "What's your name, sir?"

"B-Grant," I said, barely catching myself on the fake name. I was kind of distracted by the sudden realization of exactly how full I was.

Regret. So much regret.

"Well, Grant, the meal is on us. Congratulations." He smiled. "I'll be back in a few minutes to get a picture for the wall."

 _You'd better get a good one_ , I thought with a slight grimace, _'cause I'm never doing that again._

As he left, I stared at the plate. "Guys?"

"Yeah?"

I looked up, putting on my best serious expression. "I think I'm gonna need to be carried to the car."

"Yeah, we're not doing that," Richard said.

"Aww, come on, I just bought you dinner."

"Yeah, but you also aren't paying rent," Zach followed, "So it breaks even."

I groaned. "You villainous bastards." A moment later I realized just how on-the-nose that last comment was, but they laughed it off, so I relaxed a bit. As much as I could when _I'm so full oh god why did I do this to myself._

* * *

Resuming Main Questline...

* * *

We returned to the workshop, this time with Uber in tow, a phrase which I almost joked about before realizing that, A: This is an alternate universe where Uber wasn't a thing, and B: even if it wasn't, this was 2011 and Uber wouldn't have been invented yet.

God, If an Aleph version of me existed, he was still in high school. Poor bastard.

As we walked in, I remembered the things I needed Richard around for. First off…

"So, real talk for a minute, before the two of us get tinkering." I fetched some chairs.

"What's up?" Zach asked, as he and Richard caught the rolling chairs I'd sent across the room. "This about that thing you wouldn't tell me earlier?"

"Yeah," I said, rolling up my own chair and grabbing a handheld whiteboard off the wall on the way. "Okay, how do I put this… well, to be honest, there's no good way to start. We've got a problem, and it's named Bakuda."

"Oh, come on."

I tried to head him off. "Look, Richard-"

"What? You think you can just walk in here, pull up some chairs, and preach about how the Bakuda job was a bad idea in hindsight?"

"Richard-"

"No! You literally joined us yesterday, on a temporary basis! You don't get to call us out on stuff when you have no experience!"

"I may not have experience, but it doesn't take experience to see you guys are struggling! For fuck's sake, you guys were treated like a joke _before_ you took a job from a crazy bitch like her!"

We sat a moment, huffing at the impromptu shouting match. "Jesus," I said, "at least hear me out first."

"Rich, I think we should," Zach chimed in. "Grant here has some pretty good ideas, and while I don't like _hearing it put so bluntly,_ " he said pointedly, shooting me a look, "he's not wrong."

Richard stood up, sighing. "Fine. Let me go get a beer first."

The complete one-eighty of his reaction left me feeling whiplash. I knew he had been barely functional without Leet later on, but this was ridiculous. It was like his entire mindset was as fucked up as Bitch, but if his only pack member was Zach.

This might be harder than I thought. I could still convince him of stuff, but any majority vote might fail on principle.

No, it was worse than that, I realized. All of my well-reasoned mental arguments meant jack-shit, because I'm a fucking tabletop character whose ultimate fate is ruled by unknowable dice rolls. I was going about this all wrong: I should be focusing less on talking things out, and more on trying to decrease the difficulty of rolls.

All of which meant nothing right now, because I had no time to figure out how to do that, considering Richard was returning with his beverage of choice.

"So, as I was saying… I think that, as a team, we should figure out what our plans are with regard to Bakuda. My suggestion- and trust me, I can't believe I'm saying this- is that, if she doesn't stop soon, we should do everything we can to help stop her. Ally with someone, raid ABB stuff, something." I put a hand to my face for a moment, considering my next words more carefully. "People are dying here, and this can't go on too much longer without some response. When the dust settles, you guys might get lynched for helping her start all of this. A good way for that to not happen, is to be seen trying to stop this shit."

 **Persuade Check(Cha): Rolled 10+0 against difficulty 9. Pass.**

Richard had a scowl on his face when he broke the ensuing silence. "It makes sense, strategically. Fix our public image by trying to right a mistake. Plus, if I'm thinking about it, the gangs are probably gonna make a show of force soon, especially if the Protectorate isn't doing enough."

Finally, he was Thinking strategically. Thank Gold Jeebus for Thinker powers. Actually, no, fuck that guy, but still.

"Problem," Zach said. "You have no gear."

"I was getting to that. If we do this, you and I will have to pull some pretty late nights making gear for all of us, and Richard, I'd appreciate it if you could teach me a few things, too. I currently have, to my name, a grand total of zero fighting experience, and while I'm a decent shot with a shotgun or bow, I doubt those will come up." Actually… I had an idea on that front. Later.

"Fine. Any other big ideas?"

Besides revealing my true nature and plans, forecasting the future, and suggesting the three of us become Cauldron's R&D department? "No, I think that's it, for now."

Richard got up, and stretched a bit. "Okay. I'll put out some feelers with the other villains, keep an ear out. You guys get working, I guess. Oh, wait!" he said, snapping his fingers, "One more thing. We need a game."

We all thought about it a minute.

"I would say minesweeper, but that's not exactly something we can theme costumes off of…"

"No kidding. Hmm…"

"We could do Double Dragon! No, wait, that's two-player, shit…"

"Contra?"

"Also two-player."

"Dammit."

Zach facepalmed. "Guys, we're idiots. Saint's Row 2." He started counting off points. "Gangs, one of which looks like the ABB if nobody had powers. Crazy gear, good characters to copy, and it's not one we've done before."

Goddammit, they managed to still make SR2 in this universe? Now I wanted to play that. "I'm in, as long as we get to build the Pimp Slap."

"I'm game," Richard agreed with a grin.

"Dude, that was just bad," Zach said with a laugh. He got up and headed for the fridge

"I'm terrible at jokes, and I could still do better than that," I seconded.

"Ah, screw you, fatty," he said with a biting tone.

"Yeah, yeah, go for the fat joke," I shot back. "You'd think a guy with super skills would make better insults, but…"

"Guys, guys," Zach said as he returned with drinks, "Chill out, take a Mountain Dew, and let's get some shit built."

Amen to that.


	6. Awoken 1-6

Today's my birthday, so as a gift to you all, have a new chapter!

Awoken 1.6

We split off to various stations in the workshop. Zach started working on the scanner I'd asked for, while Richard sat at a computer, brainstorming costumes and equipment. I found a small whiteboard, grabbed an empty table, and began designing my first psitech weapon. Or, at least, my first attempts at one.

I'd given it a bit of thought, after the errant thought of a telekinetic gauss rifle. Rifles have their perks, but if there were two things gauss rifles were infamous for, it was finicky calibrations and heavy recoil. I couldn't afford something that wasn't dependable in hostile environments, and I had no time for testing different timings. Add in the fact that I hadn't fired a gun in a few years, and had never shot anything with more recoil than a 12-gauge shotgun? You were inviting problems on both the designer's, and user's, ends.

But I was from the South, and if there's one thing they love down there, it's the Second Amendment. Guns were far from the end of my experience: bows, knives, slingshots, axes, and even a bit of swordsmanship were under my belt, courtesy of the Boy Scouts of America and a few redneck friends.

A bow seemed like a good fit, as far as ranged options went. Familiar, easy to use, powerful, and dependable when made with the right materials. But how to make it a psitech weapon?

Simple, at least on paper. Munchkin the hell out of it.

Make it a magnetically accelerated bow, power that with a telekinetic generator. Then I'd have a bow with the added ability to charge shots for devastating damage. Since I'd make it specifically so that only a telekinetic could possibly use it as intended, it should fall under Combat/Psitech for attack rolls, even when I didn't charge it. A low-tech solution for a high-tech weapon skill.

Only problem? I hadn't done circuitry work in several years, not since Robotics class in high school. My crash course over the last day or so had hardly been helpful in reminding me how to put things together. I remembered just about all of it, I think, but I was out of practice.

So, it was back to the drawing board, in a very literal sense.

First, I drew up a concept, and listed out goals for the end product. Every feature I could realistically want went on the list, then that list was in turn reordered in order of importance. I then spent well over two hours working backward from the concept, through the math, to the specific layout of electromagnets, and finally to the mechanisms required for the device to fire properly, which was my bare minimum acceptable outcome.

 ** **Science Check(Int): Rolled 8+1 vs. difficulty 8. Pass.****

Several designs were scrapped for being too complex, unfeasibly bulky, or too advanced for my current abilities. I had to outright remake the whole bow when I realized all my designs were recurve instead of compound; it would absolutely suck to lug a three to four-foot recurve bow around in an urban environment. A force of habit- almost all of my experience was with recurves.

Finally, I ended up with a design- albeit one missing many of the features I would have wanted- but this was more about having a weapon, not having a great weapon.

Now, to start building it. I wiped the board clean of the evidence, having committed the design to memory, then made my way over to the scrap pile for parts.

 ** **Perception Check(Int): Rolled 8+1 vs. difficulty 7. Pass.****

After a bit of searching through piles of extremely dangerous Tinkertech, I came across something unexpected: a damaged, but fixable, compound bow, reminiscent of the futuristic designs from Crisis, or whatever Bet's equivalent was. It would need a bit of repair and re-tuning, but the fact that it existed would save me hours of pulley-shaping and scrapped parts.

I might even finish this thing before dawn, at this rate. All that I really needed was the handle apparatus, and that was just… a lot of circuitry, and probably a few exploding capacitors, and a whole bunch of other fun tech problems away.

Maybe I was being unrealistic with my timeline. Eh, I guess I'd find out how long it would take when the sun came up.

I made my way over to the computers again, pulled up a CAD program, and began designing a handle for the 3D printer. After another hour, I had the design the way I wanted it, and simultaneously had size restrictions set in stone for my internal parts. Maybe I was going about it in the wrong order, I wasn't really sure; but I also couldn't make it too big, or it wouldn't be feasible to use, so having set restrictions on size made sense.

After I sent the job to the 3D printer, I opened a new program on the desktop; a circuitry design application. I began drawing circuit boards based on the design of the apparatus, taking into consideration the electromagnets and the miniature telekinetic generator I would nest in the machine.

 ** **Science Check(Int): Rolled 7+1 vs. difficulty 8. Pass.****

It wasn't a very large area, but all I really needed was a system of supercapacitors for a power bank, some resistors, and a few conversions between AC and DC between the inputs, storage buffers, and outputs. The supercapacitor banks would ensure that, when I needed it, I would have a large store of electricity ready, while the resistors would meter out the flow so that my electromagnets didn't become heating elements instead.

Couldn't help but feel like I was reinventing the wheel, but I couldn't put my finger on what I was missing. I sighed, and set the circuitry etching machine to work. After I revealed the full extent of my abilities, I might get a professional's help for small jobs like these, but for now, I had to do everything myself.

I turned my attention to my last project of the morning: the core of the weapon, the thing that I absolutely must not fuck up lest the entire project be rendered useless: the generator.

It had to be small, and it had to be powerful. To be clearer, for this to work, I needed to be able to dump enough power into the system every few seconds that I could power every shot without fail.

 ** **Tech/Psitech Check(Int): Rolled 8+1 vs. difficulty 9. Pass.****

I spent the next two hours machining my own generator from scratch. I ended up with a finned cylinder with a tiny, oblong black wheel sticking out of one side, and two high-gauge wires feeding out the other. Inside, the wheel connected to a frankly ludicrous amount of heavily lubricated gearwork, which made even small rotations of the wheel send the internal dynamo spinning like a drill straight out of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

At least, it would in theory; I might have made the thing too hard to turn. I couldn't get more than the tiniest movement out of it by hand, because the gear ratio was so high that it took massive effort to even get a slight rotation out of the thing. The amount of continuous torque required to power the weapon would likely outpace even a reasonably strong man, but I was sure I could do it with telekinesis, as long as I got to level 2 soon. After all, telekinesis wouldn't tire me out, and didn't factor in grip strength and pauses to readjust grip.

I didn't dare test it here, but I was reasonably certain that it would work. Only while firing custom magnetic ammunition, at a higher weight than I'd like, and with nearly five of my six seconds of time per round used to charge it, alongside other problems; but it would do the job, and that was all that mattered.

I checked the clock as I stifled a yawn. It was only five-thirty? Holy shit, I was hammering this out fast. Must be rolling well, I guess.

Making my way over to the 3D printer, I was surprised to find it already finished, and a check of the circuitry etching machine found that project done, too. I took them all to a station, ran a few quick tests, and deemed them good enough. Donning a dust mask, I ground the carbon fiber shell a bit, smoothing sharp edges and fixing small errors, but that was soon finished, at least to my (admittedly poor) standards.

Standards aside, I had all the parts of a weapon: now it was time for the assembly.

I fixed the pulley system of the bow itself, a comparatively minor task after today's crash course in machining and design. The next step was far less simple: I had to cut off the grip, and fit my new one, with all its bulk, into the frame of the existing bow. It took judicious amounts of cutting, a few worried moments where I thought I might have structurally compromised the bow, and a near-miss that would have resulted in self-electrocution had I tested the generator. Eventually, I got the massive apparatus to fit, and encased it in the carbon fiber shell I'd printed. The only inner working left exposed was the wheel of the generator, as I would need to see it to power the device.

Finally, I strung the bow (a surprisingly difficult task in itself), readjusted its draw strength to a manageable forty-five pounds, and checked it for any other issues. After correcting a few flaws, patching the gaps in the casing with rubberized sealant to improve its water resistance, and tightening a few bolts, it… was… done! I whooped in victory, throwing up my tired hands to the ceiling.

* * *

 ** **Through careful design, precise craftsmanship, and no small amount of luck, you have invented your first item. Minor Goal achieved: 700 xp.****

* * *

 ** **Level Up!****

* * *

My celebratory whoop was cut short with an "-ack!" by the sudden feeling of power rushing through my head. My hands shot to the sides if my head at the sensation. Not painful, but incredibly unsettling, and completely unexpected.

Zach called over, "Hey, you okay?"

Holy shit, was that a level up? Already? How? When?

I shut off the train of questions for later. Focus. Lie.

"Yeah," I gasped, still holding my head, "Just a headache. I'll be fine."

"Take a break, man. Don't work yourself too hard."

I nodded, grunted an agreement. Setting aside the bow, I made my way outside for some fresh air. By the time I'd ducked through the boarded-up door, the rushing had subsided somewhat.

My head still felt weird, though, and it didn't seem to be going away. Metaphysical noise seemed to pool in specific spots in my mind, slight areas of discomfort like the mental equivalent of stuffed sinuses. It was like when your ears are full of water, and everything sounds fuzzy and distant, except it was in my brain instead. I could actually feel the channels of energy that I would be focusing my powers through, both physically and mentally.

I was now aware of yet another telekinesis power at my disposal, signified by a slightly larger and less restricted path through my head. More importantly, there was one channel that felt like it needed something; I had a power slot to allocate.

Without hesitation, I grabbed the first level of Biopsionics. It wasn't healing yet; I needed to grab Biopsionics level 2 for that; but it did mean I would have the ability to revive the very recently deceased, and that would be vital.

I groaned a bit as the feeling of yet another new channel of power coursed through my head. Dammit, that felt weird. Hopefully the feeling would taper off soon. But hey, 6 whole PP, and a few new powers.

More importantly, I could start mastering my powers.

Mastery was the main reason I loved playing psychics. You could choose to spend the cost of a power permanently, and after a long waiting period based on the strength of the power, you would be able to use that power for free, forever.

Downsides: you had to master powers in order, from 1 to 9. This got expensive very quickly, as the higher-level powers cost a lot to use; without a modifier to add an extra PP or so per level, you might be barely scraping by in terms of expendable PP. You could only master powers that were lower-level than you, too, so I had to wait till level 2.

Upside? I distinctly recalled there being no restrictions on how many powers you could master at once. Which meant…

I focused on the channels of power in my head. Thankfully, I had an idea of what to do, probably thanks to backstory me actually having learned this shit. Taking all three of the smaller channels, I carefully wrapped them in energy from the standing 'pools' I felt earlier. The energy metaphorically flowed off the channels like a syrup, but it left a thin coating behind, fortifying and building them by the slightest amount. Maintaining the film required only the tiniest bit of effort afterward, a nagging reminder no worse than my mild tinnitus was.

I'd have to do this daily from now until… the Third of May, I calculated after checking my commpad. Fourteen days from now. Hopefully I had another level up before then, so I could master level two powers in the month before the Nine arrived in early June.

Still, having unlimited revives for teammates, short range teleports every six seconds, and the potential of constant telekinetic power over nearby stuff? That was well worth the wait.

I headed back inside. There was more work to be done.

Forcing Sleep Cycle...

My sleep was interrupted by the sounds of pots and pans in the kitchen. Rolling over, I half-mumbled, half yawned a weak protest, then went back to sleep.

What felt like a few minutes later, a plate was put in my hands. I was awake just long enough to place it on the ground, then I fell asleep to the sounds of a game starting up.

The next thing I knew, I had a frustrated person trying to shake me awake. I did the sensible thing for a sleeping person to do, and slapped at them pitifully, moaned at the light, and nestled my head into the couch cushions. Sweet slumber took me a moment later.

I woke up to the sound of an air horn. Screaming in a combination of surprise, fear, and unforgiving rage, I flailed my arm out, striking something, then shot up off the couch. in full on fight-mode. "WHAT THE FUCK!" I bellowed, breathing heavily as the adrenaline coursed through my system, glaring angrily at the person who had decided to give me a heart attack as a wake-up call. My brain caught up a moment later, and the pain a moment after that. Ow, fuck, I might have bruised the back of my hand, too.

"Finally, I thought you might never wake up," Richard said as he made his way over to the air horn. "You are not an easy man to get out of bed."

I rubbed my eyes. I was still angry, but the murderous rage was tempering to a mere 'angry hibernating bear' level. "Yeah, could have told you that. Jesus fucking Christ, I think I'm deaf in one ear."

"Well, maybe if you'd gotten up when I made you lunch, or turned up the volume on the game, or shook you awake, or shined a light in your eyes… I could go on."

For fuck's sake. "Okay, for future reference: I have a disorder. My whole circadian rhythm is completely fucked, and forcing me to stay up late or get up early is generally a bad idea." A thought struck me. "What time is it?"

He hit a button on his controller. "12:30?"

Fuck me, that meant I'd only slept around five hours. Not that big of a problem for most people, but for me, it was a big deal. "Great," I said with a heavy sigh. "That means I have no idea when I'll get tired again."

"Oh, boo hoo. Just eat your lunch," he said as he picked back up the controller.

I took up the plate and groggily made my way to the kitchen. I was gonna be tired for the next few hours, and all because I didn't think to explain my shitty sleep problems.

"So," I called to Richard as I popped my plate in the microwave, "What's up? Besides lunch, anyway."

"Well, you asked me to train you up a bit. Figure if I have to do that, we should get started, so you don't embarrass us when something does happen."

"Makes sense," I said, while mentally groaning at the very idea of anything beyond being a couch potato for the next few hours. The microwave beeped its agreement, signaling that my sandwich, which appeared to be a tuna melt, was reheated.

As I made my way back to the couch, I realized that I did have a small problem, though: the question of skill points.

Uber was probably going to be my main Trainer, for obvious reasons, but I wasn't sure I wanted to learn the skill he was teaching. Right now, Combat/Unarmed was, at most, of moderate use. I wasn't going to do much damage with it, but I did need the skill for a few psychic powers, including the Teleportation tree. Plus, it did help me break grapples and do nonlethal KO's, so it wouldn't be a complete waste.

That said, I only had 2 skill points per level, and training Unarmed to 0 would take both of them. For the same price, I could train Medical tech, Psitech, Combat/Psitech, or even Perception to 1, any of which could be useful in the short term and long term both. Or, I could save my points and bump Science, Pretech, or Persuade to 1 next level, although that was admittedly less appealing.

I took a bite of my sandwich as I weighed my options, then made my decision. My best bet was to self-train Medical tech, and just hope I could get a free level 0 in Unarmed despite the lack of points. Maybe next level I could buy it, but I'd rather get a head start on figuring out the Lazarus Patch and Medical Kit tech before Leviathan arrived.

"Dude, this is a great tuna melt," I found myself saying after I swallowed, "Thank you."

He didn't even spare me a glance. "Eh, I just threw it together."

"It's tasty, man." I took another bite, while watching him play some Street Fighter 2. "You got the mayo right and everything."

"It's just a sandwich," he shrugged as he flawlessly executed combo hits, "don't make such a big deal out of it."

I took his advice, dug into my sandwich, and stopped trying to be friendly with him for now. It obviously wasn't working that well. Instead, I renewed the fortifications on my powers, which had mostly disappeared as I'd slept.

That was another issue, although not an immediate one: PP Regeneration happened as you slept, so I needed seven to eight hours of restful sleep to regenerate my spent PP to full. Great. So, not only was I going to want full sleep cycles, I would __require__ sleep to recover after a major fight or power testing, and any interruption would lead me to be powerless for the next day. Chalk up one more item on the inconvenience pile.

After my tuna melt had been finished off, Richard shut off the game. "Go get dressed, and let's go."

I looked down, and back to him, quirking an eyebrow. "You do realize that you guys never gave me money for clothes, right?" I pinched at the silky, stretchy, oddly scent-and-stain-free fabric of my futuristic clothing. "This is the only outfit I own."

He facepalmed, dragging it down his face. "God, this is such a pain," he grumbled.

"I'm not trying to screw up your day-"

"Shut up," he said, raising a hand. "Grab your stuff. We'll go shopping, __then__ we'll do this stupid training session, got it?"

Cowed a bit, I swung my backpack on, and headed out the door.

* * *

Character sheet for Level 2:

Class: Psychic

Background: Researcher

Training: Academy Graduate

Attributes and Modifiers:

STR 12, +0

DEX 10, +0

INT 16, +1

CHA 12, +0

WIS 10, +0

CON 14, +1

HP: 9

PP: 6

Attack Bonus: 0

XP: 2100/4010

Saving Throws (1d20)

Physical: 13

Mental: 12

Evasion: 15

Tech: 16

Luck: 14

Skills (2d6+skill level+attribute modifier+bonuses):

Culture/Earth(real), 0

Persuade, 0

Perception, 0

Science, 0

Tech/Medical, 0

Tech/Psitech, 0

Tech/Pretech, 0

Combat/Psitech, 0

All others at -1.

Skill points: 2

 **Powers** :

The primary discipline goes up automatically every level, up to the maximum of 9. Once capped, a new primary is selected. Each level, one other power is also able to be bought from any other tree.

 **Primary: Telekinesis:**

 **Remote Manipulation - Level 1** : The psychic can manipulate any object visible to his unaided vision as if handling it with one hand. The force has an effective Strength of 10 and can be used to wield an object to attack at a -2 penalty to hit and using the relevant combat skill of the psychic. **Cost: 1 PP.**

 **Telekinetic Press - Level 2** : The psychic's strength increases at this level, if not his degree of control. Objects can still only be manipulated as if with one hand, but up to two hundred kilos can be lifted, or force exerted as if Strength 18. This force lacks enough fine coordination to successfully attack a mobile target. **Cost: 3 PP.**

 **Teleportation:**

 **Sidestep - Level 1** : The teleporter has unlocked the rudiments of the discipline. They can teleport up to 10 meters and carry up to 5 kilos of clothing, equipment, or other living organisms with them. **Cost: 1 PP.**

 **Biopsionics:**

 **Biostasis - Level 1** : The biopsionic can maintain the vital life processes of a mortally wounded teammate with a touch. The biopsionic may restore to life a creature that has been dead for no more than six rounds. There is a 100% chance of revival if this power is used within three rounds of death, with the chance decreasing by 25% for each round afterwards. The creature is set to zero hit points and remains unconscious until it recieves medical attention. It will die if it does not receive such attention within 24 hours. The power does not function on creatures who have been torn apart or otherwise mangled beyond conventional surgical repair, nor those dead of poison, disease, or old age. **Cost: 1 PP, Target gains 2 System Strain.**

Note: the Biopsionics tree uses a mechanic called System Strain. Your maximum System Strain is the same as your constitution score, and represents your body's resistance to metaphysical effects on a cellular level. Any effect that gives System Strain stops working on that target if SS is maxed out, and each point takes 24 hours of time during which the target recieves no biopsionic modification to remove.

Gear:

1 TL4 Backpack

1 Monoblade, 1d8+1 damage

1 Metatool

1 Survival Kit

1 Medical Kit

1 Lazarus Patch

1 Commpad

1 spare Type A power cell

Encumbrance: 6/12

Armor Class 9 (Lower AC is better)

 **Mag-bow**

Psitech Weapon(Telekinesis) (Dex/Str)

Encumberance 2

Tech level 3

1d6 damage

Range 100/Max Range 400

Reloads and fires each round.

Alt-fire mode:

Only works if Telekinesis lv. 2 is active or a mastered power. Uses special ammo.

2d6+2 damage

Range 300/Max Range 800

+2 to hit

User must move at half speed while charging this weapon.

Reloads and fires each round.

Pierces light cover and ignores armor of tech level 3 and lower.


	7. Awoken 1-7

Awoken 1.7

I don't really know what I was expecting. Weymouth? The Market? Some other unique location?

We pulled into a spot, and headed into Wal-Mart.

"Here," Richard said, passing me a card. "You go get some stuff, I'm gonna go check out the electronics section."

"Thanks. Pin, or what?"

"It should just ring up. Just try to be quick about it, I don't want to be here longer than two hours."

"I'll try."

"Oh, and grab an inflatable mattress and a tote. We're moving you off the couch."

"Okay, sounds good. Mind if I get a few other things, while I'm at it?"

"Sure, whatever. It comes out of your third of our next job, though."

"Fair enough." With that, we split up.

I spent the first hour on clothing, focusing less on looks and more on practicality in the long-term.

Back when I was a boy scout, I'd learned an important lesson or two about practical wear. Lesson 1: In wet environments, cotton kills. The stuff soaks up lots of moisture, and that is undesirable for anything that doesn't need absorbency, like underwear, pants, and socks. Cotton t-shirts were fine, but only because they made for great disposable bandages and cooling towels.

Lesson 2: A good belt can be almost as useful as good rope. I picked out a strong, well-made cloth webbing belt, the kind without that stupid ring fastening system, and got a second for good measure. I also grabbed a wallet and watch while I was browsing.

Lesson 3: Always bring extra socks, a rule I followed as religiously as a hitchhiker followed the towel rule. A grand total of 16 non-cotton pairs of socks were added to the cart, and two packs of underwear followed. Overkill? Maybe, for my current situation, but it paid to be prepared.

After I had my clothing sorted, I headed on to my next bit of shopping. I needed a bunch of stuff, and thanks to the grab-bag that is Wal-Mart, I would find most of it in the camping section.

I grabbed a 20-pack of arrows, some waterproof storage bags, a 3-liter backpack reservoir, a coil of rope, a pocket saw, a cheap but functional one-man backpacking tent, and a few rolls of duct tape. I eyed the knives, more because I liked them than out of any real need; my monoblade should be far better than any non-cape-made blade out there. After some extra thought, I also grabbed some iodine tablets and a few MREs. I would stow the food and Iodine for post-Endbringer prep, probably at the workshop, with more to follow later.

Finally, I grabbed an inflatable mattress and a suitable oversize opaque storage container, dumped them into my full cart, and made my way to the electronics section to check out. I felt like I was forgetting some things, but I'd already spent a fair bit of time browsing.

Plus, I probably looked like a camping nut with all this survival gear in my cart.

"What. The fuck."

I turned away from the cashier to confront my teammate.

"Hi," I said cheerily, "Find anything good?"

Richard ignored my question. "You said a few extra things," he said with a note of exasperation.

"I got a… few… extra things," I replied innocently.

"I figured you meant a candy bar, or some Cheez-Its or something."

I smacked at my head, realizing what part of the nagging feeling of something forgotten was. "No, but I did forget to buy some actual spices. You might make some great tuna salad, but I work best with a wide range of flavors."

"You are an idiot," he said with frustration. "Just... just finish checking out."

I decided not to poke at him anymore. It was pretty fun to mess with him, and I was still slightly grouchy about my abrupt and rude awakening, but he was paying for this stuff, at least in the short term. "Sure thing. I'll meet you at the SUV in a couple minutes?"

"Fine, whatever," he said, turning and heading away.

I turned to the cashier as he disappeared around the corner. "Hey, so… you mind watching this stuff a minute? I gotta go grab some spices real quick."

* * *

Transporting Items...

* * *

Richard drove us back in tense silence, while I enjoyed the radio and its unfamiliar music. We unloaded the SUV, I changed into a new outfit, and we made our way to a gym.

"So," he said after we entered the private room he'd reserved, "do you have any experience, whatsoever, with any kind of exercise?"

Ouch. Way to be blunt about things. "Yes, in fact, I do. I like hiking and swimming, but walk at least somewhat regularly."

"Okay, give me a rundown of weight, height, age, and activity level."

"Why?" I asked with a frown. That stuff was kind of personal.

"Because I'm trying to figure out how best to make you not be a fat, useless third wheel when we do get in trouble. Just fucking answer."

I conceded the point, answering the Thinker as accurately as I could. It didn't help that he commented on each statistic, but I didn't bother trying to stop him. It was just the same tired, childish shit that a teenager would dish out, and I could care less.

"So, in summation," he said after I finished, "you need to lose, like, fifty pounds, including gains in muscle, and you need basic fighting experience too." He dug out a pad of paper. "Well, I do like a challenge. Go do some toe touches while I write up an exercise program and training schedule."

I nodded, and made my way to a mat. Wishing I had earbuds, a normal phone, or music to listen to, in that order, I mentally shrugged and did my stretches in the quiet, echoing room.

Stupid… sore… muscles… agh. Lack of sleep did not combine well with exercise. To top it off, I was one of those people who got sore two days after exercise, so I was stiff from all the walking of my first day on Bet. My hamstrings were screaming, and my calves were tense, but I pushed through, dutifully working through a proper set of stretches for the first time in months.

"Okay," he said as I finished, "we're gonna start with holds, because you'll do best using size as an advantage, then we'll work backward to basic fighting technique. Then, we'll discuss weight loss and diet. Sound good? Good."

He waved me over to the padded mats that took up the center of the room, and I helped him move weights off them for a few minutes, setting them back around the walls so we had a clear area to wrestle.

Setting down the last of the weights, he turned and led me to the center of the mat. "Turn around," he commanded. I gave him a look, but he just made a spinning motion with his finger. I turned.

"Okay, this is a great hold for when you can get behind someone. I'll demonstrate on you, then show you how to do it properly. You ready?"

"Are you sure that's the best way to teach me? I mean, I get the whole 'see how it feels so you don't abuse it' idea, but…"

"It's fine," he said, a dripping veil of calm coating the deliberate words, "I'm a professional, and it's best to get it out of the way first. Now, are you ready?"

I wasn't, not really, but I said, "Yeah, whenever."

 ** **Combat/Unarmed Check(Dex): Rolled 4-1 vs. difficulty 10. Fail.****

The hold was sudden, arms wrapping around my torso and under my armpits, snaking up to cup my neck in his hands. I felt the pressure of two thumbs against my carotids, light but firm, and the feeling of fingers gripping my head in such a way as to completely arrest its movement.

"You feel that?" he whispered in my ear. "Your arms are uselessly positioned, your head is immoveable, and I could make you pass out with the slightest pressure from my thumbs. Bonus if you realized how easy it would be to snap your neck from here."

"Very funny," I said, now well aware of that fact, and also fighting the urge to try popping my neck now that he put the image in my head. "You mind letting up a bit? I think I've got the idea." I tried to reach down and pry away his fingers, but I couldn't manage it. "Richard?"

"Like I said, a pretty good basic hold. Total control, especially if you take out their knees to remove kicking from the equation, like so!" I felt my leg give way, felt my shoulder almost give under the strain, and yelled, "What the hell!" as I scrabbled to stand again. "Let me go!"

"Stop struggling, or I put you in the morgue," he said in my ear, quiet and clear.

Uber had killed, in the years after Leet died. He might not do so here, but I had no doubt his moral code was fucked enough to follow through. I stopped.

"Now, you're going to tell me everything," he said with a low growl. "Who you really are, where you're from, why you tried so hard to join our team, and what your real goals are. Then we'll see if you leave with me… or with the paramedics." He punctuated the statement with a twitch of his thumbs, making their presence clear.

I swallowed, tried voicing a denial. "What-" I stopped as he twitched his thumbs again.

"Ap-up-bup, that won't do," he said, mocking. "I'm asking the questions, then you talk. First question: Where are you from?"

"The Bay-"

"Don't say the Bay, or anywhere north of D.C. Your accent says southern, with few outside influences."

"…Arkansas," I admitted. Fucking hell, my shoulder was hurting. "Little Rock, Arkansas."

"Ooh, capital city. Nice. You sent by the Fallen or something?" He pushed upward slightly, stretching my neck out further.

"No, never met them." Shot in the dark. "Just let me go, I'll tell you everything."

"You lied to me, and to my friend, and you have our faces," he growled, tightening his grip. "I'm not letting you go until I have everything I want answered, answered. Next question: what are your real powers?"

"What?" I said, genuinely surprised. I thought I had been careful about that? I hadn't even used them yet!

"You made a bow that has a useless power source, and did it while we were supposedly working on Saint's Row weaponry, which drew my attention. What. Is. Your. Power?" he demanded, spitting the words.

What should I say? He had me over a barrel, here. My only options, that I could see, anyway, were to tell him a lie, which could end poorly; tell him the truth, which I was pretty sure he wouldn't believe; or just demonstrate my power by teleporting out of his grip, then talk to him like a civilized adult, which probably wouldn't turn out too well, either.

I decided on option 3, after a moment of deliberation.

"I want you to know, I was planning on telling you about this eventually. My powers are…" I focused on the mental pools of energy, let some rush through one of the channels of power that carved paths through my brain, while eyeing an area and imagining myself there. The invisible energy pulsed outward, enveloping my skin, then my clothes, and then it __moved__. I was treated to the disorientating sensation of suddenly being in a different body position, facing a different way, and in a location halfway across the room. "…A bit hard to explain," I finished, rolling my shoulders to dull the pain, then rubbing and popping my neck. "We really should call Zach, though, if we're gonna have a heart-to heart."

 ** **-1 PP, 5/6 remaining****

"You're a teleporter," he said flatly. "Figures. I really hate teleporters."

"And I really hate being tortured," I said with false bravado, "but you're in luck- this time only, I'll let it slide, because I completely deserved it. I lied, or at least withheld information, and nearly got killed for it. I think that makes us even." I dusted myself off, and continued, "So, how about we go back to the loft, or hell, the tinker workshop full of weapons to turn on me, and I'll fucking tell you every detail. Then you can judge." I shrugged, then winced at the dull pain in my shoulder. "Or," I said, rolling the right arm again, "if you prefer, we can fight, you can find out what other powers I have the hard way, and then we can talk it out. Your choice."

 ** **Persuade Check(Cha): Rolled 5+0 vs. difficulty 8. Fail.****

"Fuck that," he said, pulling out a knife. Where the fuck did he- that was my knife! Fucking thieving motherfucker took my knife!

 ** **Rolling Initiative. Initiative order set.****

 ** **Round 1. FIGHT!****

He ran my way, covering the distance in mere seconds. I channeled my energy into my first-level telekinesis power, starting its five-minute timer; the channel lit up in my mind's eye, burning power like a wick. Unfortunately, this was a mistake; I was unable to move out of the way fast enough to avoid his attack entirely.

 ** **-1 PP, 4/6 remaining****

 ** **-3 HP, 6/9 remaining****

It didn't stab deep, but he did slice me across the thigh before I got out of the way. I hissed in pain as he effortlessly opened a gash with the monomolecular edge of the kukri, dodged back and away as fast as I could.

Which turned out to be surprisingly fast, actually. A character could move up to 20 meters while still performing an action, which came out to roughly 3 and a half meters a second. Fuck realistic movement speeds.

 _ _Not the time to think about game mechanics__ , I thought, shutting off the inner nerd.

While I ran, I used my telekinetic powers to lift the largest object I could think of that wouldn't be unwieldy; a forty-five-pound kettlebell, which proceeded to fly past me at almost 7 meters a second and swing in a mighty upward diagonal arc, uppercut style.

 ** **Rolled 19+9-3 = 25/20 to hit****

 ** **Rolled 1d8+2, 8 damage****

Richard, who was busy trying to chase me with a knife, never saw it coming. The kettlebell knocked him right in the gut, sending him flying backward and probably damaging a few organs. I winced, and ran over to my now-disarmed opponent.

 **Combat Cleared. 100 XP.**

He looked dead. Or near it, anyway. I checked for a pulse. "You fucking idiot," I said as I found none, "you could have just asked." I focused my energies for the third time in the last minute, and used my newest power: Biostasis. It felt strange; power traveled down my nerves, from my spine, through my arm, into my hand. Once it had all gathered, it pulsed into his chest, and I dimly felt it echo through his torso and head.

 ** **-1 PP, 3/6 remaining****

He started breathing again, and I sighed in relief. Carefully, I turned his head to the side- a gut punch could mean vomiting, and I didn't want him to drown- collected my stuff, and began thinking of a plausible cover story to get us out of the gym.

"You fucking idiot," I repeated, wrapping a cloth around the cut in my left leg- torn from his red sweatshirt, to hide the blood. It hurt like a motherfucker, but I would live. "You could have talked to me, but noo, you had to steal my shit and go psycho on my fat ass. Now I gotta Weekend at Bernie's you outta here, talk your sane teammate into hearing me out, and then go back to being your teammate and friend, despite the fact you just- ugh," I grunted as I tightened the bandage, "tried to carve me up like a honey ham. All because I failed a check somewhere."

I checked the look of the impromptu bandage. It wouldn't be impossible to hide it, as the cut went diagonally along the pocket line. The same sweatshirt went around my waist, hiding most of it. I dug in his huge pockets, found my knife's sheath, and slid it back into place. I'd clean it later.

"Okay, I'm gonna carry you, and you're gonna stay unconscious. Someone is gonna help me get you to the car, under the pretense that you passed out from exhaustion, and then you and I are gonna go see Zach and get you to a hospital. You got that?" I asked the limp form of my colleague. When he didn't respond, I nodded, and made for the door.

 _ _You fucking idiot__ , I thought to myself, __all you had to do was tell the truth.__

* * *

Resolving Plotline...

* * *

"Zach, I need two things."

"What?" he said, skeptical.

"I need a drink. Something alcoholic, don't care what strength."

"This is a hospital, so good luck with that."

I sighed. "Then I need you to sit down, and try your level best to not kill me while I tell you what happened."

He sat.

We had been told to wait for Richard in the lobby, which obviously hadn't been conducive to the whole 'reveal your secrets' thing. Awkward silence had followed, with Zach likely expecting news along the lines of 'we got attacked by X' or something once we had a private room. One short, whispered discussion had ended that idea- I'd admitted to hurting Richard, and it had gone straight from awkward to tense silence. Finally, they'd gotten him a room.

I sat too.

Richard was in bad shape, even after my powers had revived and stabilized him. Heavy bruising and some internal bleeding- pretty much everything in the front half of the lower abdomen had been crushed and battered by the attack. They had asked questions, but my cover story that he'd simply dropped a kettlebell on himself seemed to work wonders.

One hundred-six internal stiches, and twenty to seal him up. An estimated three-week total recovery, with almost a week till he was in enough shape to leave the hospital.

I'd fucked up. I'd killed my teammate, if only for a moment, and I'd left him like this. It didn't matter to me that he'd attacked first, or that I'd been justified to defend myself against lethal force. Either way, it was time to pay the piper.

 ** **Persuade Check(Cha): Rolled 12+0 vs. difficulty 10. Critical Success!)****

"I did this," I said, looking at the body of my teammate on the bed. "He started it, but it's my fault. I could have gotten away, called you, got him to calm down. Instead, I hit him so hard he almost died.

"I'm not exactly a good person. Sometimes I worry I'm a sociopath who is just… trying really hard to be normal. You know, I didn't cry when my grandfather passed away, or my uncle? Didn't break down when I realized I'd never see my family again?" I didn't say the worst part; how all I'd felt when I realized I'd killed Richard was obligation to fix him, or how the fact that I wasn't having a breakdown ate at me more than the idea that I'd killed a man.

I realized I'd left the thought hanging. "Sorry," I said, gesturing at Richard's form. "This shit has me depressed, and it doesn't help that I genuinely think I want to be your friend. Give me a minute."

I considered how I was going to phrase the next part. I didn't want to reveal my past, even though I wanted to be honest with him, and that meant I had to phrase it properly. I wasn't a tabletop character; I just happened to work like one, but it's totally a normal power. Yeah.

"Look, I'm going to come out and say it; I lied about my powers. It's not enhanced learning, or tinkering, or super science. In fact, that part is just a side benefit. I'm a Trump of sorts, I guess, but it's easier to say it like this; imagine me as a tabletop character."

He quirked an eyebrow at the unexpected statement. "What?"

"Everything I do has a chance to succeed or fail. I could, purely by accident, invent the cure for cancer with ingredients in this room, but I would far more likely just end up with nothing. I could say all the right things to convince you of something, or say all the wrong words and turn you against me. In fact, I probably got lucky with the stuff I'm saying now."

He raised an eyebrow again. "That's not really helping, to say that."

I waved my hands placatingly, and clarified. "It's not controlling people. If anything, I'm being controlled. Imagine those times you had an argument prepared, then forgot all your talking points immediately before you spoke. Same idea, except I can also just as easily succeed with no prep. I can't really control it, but that's nothing new to me. Frustrating, but not new."

"Sucks," he commented flatly. "Anything else?"

"I also have other powers, which sort of… unlock, given experience. Right now, I can do telekinesis stuff, teleport short distances, and revive the extremely recently deceased. More will come, given time. All that runs off a limited pool of energy. In short, I'm like some kind of DnD caster. It's stupid, and I hate it, but it's all I've got.

"I figured, with you two, I could have all the perks of teaming up with people, and none of the downsides of going villain, because I'd have powers to fall back on, to change my identity. That was so stupid and selfish- I was joining you two for a springboard to better things, and I was already regretting it before that first night was over. We make a good team, aside from the whole incident today, and I hope we can work things out."

Zach was silent. I gave him time. Finally, he spoke.

"What happened today?"

I sighed. "It'll sound stupid, but here's what happened. Richard took me to the gym, ostensibly to show me basic fighting skills, and tricked me into a lock. He threatened to kill me, interrogated me a bit, then monologued about how much of a fool I had been, until I teleported out of the lock. I tried to talk things out, he charged me with a knife, hurt me, and I responded with a kettlebell to the stomach, ending the dispute."

"So, he attacked you? Can I see?"

I peeled back the impromptu bandage. The wound would heal on its own in a few days, assuming I kept it clean. I should heal 2 hp per day at level 2, and I literally couldn't have more than…I mentally calculated perfect rolls and a +2 Con modifier… 12 hp right now, so it would be fully healed before Richard was out of bedrest, likely far sooner. Still, it didn't look pretty, and I couldn't help a little grunt of pain as the cloth stuck to my wound.

He whistled a bit. "Got you good." He looked at me again, waited while I rolled the bandage back. "Look, Grant, I'm not happy with this. I'm quite pissed, actually, even though I don't look it. But you did make an attempt to fix your fuckup, and I do admit that he was way out of line with the shit he pulled. So, how about we start fresh." He extended a hand. "Hi, I'm Zach, and I'm your teammate for the time being. Let's not get into stupid fights that almost get a teammate killed, okay?"

I shook his hand. "Sounds like a plan."

"Good."

A pause. "A kettlebell? Really? You had to use a kettlebell?"

I shrugged, winced at the slight twinge of remaining shoulder pain. "I used what I had nearby."

"I mean, you could have tripped him, or wrapped him in a mat, or something, right?"

"Couldn't, I don't have that kind of dexterity yet."

"Huh." We fell silent again.

A thought struck me. "So, on the topic of not keeping secrets…"

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna unlock healing soon, but I need experience. You mind helping me learn about medical technology so I can try inventing some stuff? I would have asked Richard, but, well…" I trailed off.

He sighed, looking at Richard's bed. "Yeah, that'd probably be best."

"Tomorrow?" I asked, knowing neither of us wanted to leave until Richard woke up.

"Tomorrow," he confirmed.

We lapsed back into silence, and settled in for a wait.


	8. Ascent 2-1

_This chapter beta-read by Undead Robot, Abhorsen, and broughtfromxp._

Ascent 2.1

 _Six days later…_

 **Skill Trained: Tech/Medical 1**

"So, you're saying you could probably make more of these super-first-aid kits, now that we've gone over this stuff for, what, five days?"

I shrugged. "I'm saying that I should be more likely to succeed at reproducing it, but as with everything, it's still up to chance."

"That's really weird, but hey, better that than nothing. So, we'll go get some medical shit later, I guess?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, I'll be giving it a shot later, obviously, but the kit's lower priority. I'd rather retry the Lazarus Patch first, though, considering the bombing campaign, and that there's gonna be an Endbringer fight, somewhere, sometime, in the next few weeks or months."

He sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right. But, I'm telling you, that medkit has some pretty awesome stuff. Sucks that you don't remember how you made half of those drugs."

"Yeah," I said with what I hoped sounded like a convincing amount of dismay. I'd been hinting that my gear had been made sometime following my trigger, during a period of delirium. It had been enough to keep him from prying too much, even if it weighed heavily on me to use that kind of trauma as a cover. "So, what time are we picking Richard up from the hospital?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I'll know when you do, although I'm not sure you should come, dude. He's been pretty pissed off, might take a swing at you again."

I shrugged, closing the medical textbook on the table as I replied, "Better to get it out of the way, right? Besides, if he's gonna punch my face in, might as well be at the hospital when it happens."

He was hesitant. "I'm not sure about this, but it's your face on the line, and I'm not gonna back you up if you guys start fighting."

I nodded. "Fair enough."

"Well, I'm gonna go try a few projects while we wait for the call. You want to come help me?"

"Nah, I gotta study some more, maybe try reverse engineering some stuff too. Let me know how that caloric capacitance project goes, though."

"Will do." He stood up and walked across the shop.

I cracked my neck, stretched a bit, and fired up the computer, opening up the usual windows. Messy, stilted notes, dense research papers, and even a few conspiracy websites; everything I needed to dive into the brain of an insane, fictional genius.

I'd started a routine of sorts. Every day, I devoted at least an hour of thinking to the problem of Metaphysics, trying to figure out where Tiberius Crohn could have stumbled across such a fundamental flaw in normal physics. The problem was, I wasn't exactly sure it existed.

I knew that real me (if he existed) had a drive to have things make sense. He would default to writing things a certain way, and as far as I was aware, that way would be to integrate plot points and mechanics from the crossover; make a cohesive alternate universe, with a series of minor rationalizations for why it hadn't changed anything. Unfortunately, I also knew that having my powers be an out-of-context problem would be a tempting idea, one that would simplify writing by removing Scion and Contessa from the picture in the short term, at the cost of possibly denying me the technology I needed for my plan. Beyond that, there was the idea that I might be delusional, that I was a parahuman after all; or that this was all a dream, or simulation, or any number of other explanations. On top of _all of that,_ I had to accept the fact that the difficulty of this task might currently be impossible for me to accomplish, like rolling a 20 on 2d6 without extra help, or that I would get a string of bad rolls for months or years.

It didn't bear thinking about how screwed I would be if any of those scenarios was my reality. Even as it stood, the task was daunting.

There were a few places where physics started failing to cover things. Edge cases were obvious; black, white, and worm- holes, strange quarks, quantum teleportation, neutron stars, the Higgs-Boson; all things that pushed the limits of the physical universe in some way. I could confirm theories of parallel universes, as well as working off of higher spatial dimensional theory and the related field of string theory, but that still only vaguely resembled the descriptions of the energies involved in a Spike Drive jump. It was like tapping into the Warp of WH40K, but from a hard-sci-fi universe and with no help from the other side.

Still, if I didn't get it soon, I'd be forced to escalate the hard way, by leveling over time. I couldn't afford that, so I had to try, even if it might be impossible.

I started off by taking the scanner Zach built me, a tricorder-inspired handheld device, and activated my basic telekinesis. I started scanning, studying the energy signatures on the readout as I rotated a few ball bearings in midair. I kept studying while I got more results from the machine, typing out details and spitballing theories to test out scientifically. Once the five-minute limit expired, giving off a wealth of information as the mysterious forces disappeared, I started dissecting the scan in depth.

 **-1 PP, 5/6 remaining**

 **Science Check(Int): Rolled 10+2 vs. difficulty 13. Fail.**

After an hour of exhaustive but fruitful work, I hit a wall. Sighing, I gave up on the telekinesis study and began working out the math behind teleportation, having recorded some of that two days ago. Another failed attempt, trying to get a glimpse of higher universes on the scanner while I superluminally popped across the room, but perhaps a deeper study might yield results.

 **Science Check(Int): Rolled 5+2 vs. difficulty 13. Fail.**

The math was horrible; it had been years since I last did anything even remotely close to this level of physics, and my Science skill obviously wasn't giving out any assistance today. I ended up fighting to keep my attention on it for another hour before I heard Zach's phone ring. Sighing, I pushed aside the paper and got up, stretching.

"That was Richard," Zach said, hanging up. "They're done removing his stitches, he's getting out in an hour and a half after some followup. How's the study going?"

I made a noise of disgust. "No luck. Even though I can glimpse something more, I can't grasp it yet. How was your tinkering?"

He shrugged. "Well, I seem to have successfully made a megawatt-rated power source that runs on honey buns, so that's a thing."

"Powers are weird like that," I commented.

"Yeah."

"Does it run on any other kinds of food?"

He shook his head. "Sort of? I took your advice and kept it specialized to one thing, but there's nothing special about one kind of glazed, mass-produced pastry versus another, so you could probably run it on bear claws or donuts, I guess?" He frowned seriously, started rubbing his chin. "I'm not sure how it would interact with fruit fillings, but it wouldn't be good. Chocolate icing or powdered sugar might be okay. We'll have to do a cost analysis on buying pastries direct from manufacturers and what pastries are cheapest… hmm." He seemed to come back to himself, probably from noticing how I was snickering.

"What?"

I shook my head. I had the mental picture of Leet, certified least intimidating cape in the Bay, frantically shoving a donut into a funnel after his laser refused to fire. "Nothing," I said, not wanting to hurt his feelings. "You wanna go get lunch? Maybe we can greet him with a nice meal, or something?"

"I got a bit more work to do before we can go, actually. You want to come help?"

I shrugged. "Sounds good."

-Respawning NPCs-

The trip to the hospital was complicated. Bakuda's bombing campaign had gone on for a bit over a week now, and a not-insignificant number of streets had to be blocked off and detoured around. Even now, there were still multiple 'detonations' in the news every morning and afternoon, with grisly descriptions of all manner of effects. The media was having a field day with it, and it was showing in the populace.

Zach cursed as a yellow Jeep cut in front of him, pulling out of a Burger King parking lot like a bat out of hell, almost getting hit by oncoming traffic in the process. I tried to calm him down a bit, taking his hand off the horn. "Chill out." The woman had probably been trapped in that lot for a minute or two, took a chance when she saw one. "Everyone's on edge, don't make it worse."

He grumbled about it, but didn't press the issue. I went back to my daily meditation. I was starting to feel the reinforcement, and not in a good way; after a week, it felt like my nerves were burning while I did it, and left a minor ache behind. I was really trying not to think about the implications of that, but I had to continue. Moreover, it was becoming an increasingly difficult task- the closest metaphor was that every time I poured the energy over the channel, it dripped off like syrup or epoxy, and a little stuck to the rough patches of the coating. Then it hardened, made the rough areas smoother, and that in turn made it harder for anything to stick next time. Or something. It was weird.

A pothole momentarily broke my concentration as we pulled into the hospital parking lot, and I was quietly relieved that my energy being a material was a fiction my mental training made to deal with raw extradimensional power. I finished up as Zach found a spot, and sighed a little as the burning faded. Just 7 more days till infinite minor powers.

I was not looking forward to what the last day might feel like.

"Okay, look," Zach said after he turned off the car. "Richard- I don't want you to get the wrong idea, but I'm pretty sure he hates you. You threw off our dynamic, and then you put him in the hospital. Just stay back, and let me do the talking."

"I'll try." I had my fair share of experience with people like Richard. Family, mostly. You had to hold your tongue, but you also had to stand your ground. Giving anything up meant they pushed the line back with you. "Can't promise, but I'll try."

He stared at me a moment, and I put my hands up defensively, saying, "Not gonna start anything. I just want to get along, here."

"Fine, whatever. Like I said, he punches you, you deserve it." With that, he got out of the car.

"Great," I grumbled to myself, closing my door. I put on a pleasant expression, and caught up to Zach. I wanted to say something, cut the tension, but I couldn't find the right words. Instead, we walked toward the entrance in silence.

The hospital was busy, although far less so than last week. Hospital staff and volunteers moved with purpose through the halls, and there were multiple signs referring people to remain calm and be patient due to high patient numbers. It wasn't a disaster relief zone or anything, but there was an air of stress and weariness that just pervaded everything.

"I filled him in on what you said happened, by the way," Zach said after we lucked upon an empty elevator. "He… reluctantly confirmed most of it. Otherwise, I probably would have thrown you out a few days ago, heh," he said with an awkward laugh. "I'm leaving it up to you to explain your powers. They're weird shit, and it's probably better that you explain them, _after you apologize_."

Good to know. "Apology is first priority, yeah, I got it," I said tiredly. "And I'll wait for you to tell me when. And I'll keep my mouth shut otherwise. Et cetera."

"Good." The door opened, and we made way for an empty stretcher and a nurse. The ride was quiet after that.

Richard was sitting up when we got to the room, holding his cell phone. "I was just about to call you," he said, brow furrowing in anger as he saw me enter behind Zach. I kept my face blank.

"Rich, give it a rest. Let's get you out of here so they can have the bed back."

"Close the door, Zach. I'm gonna say my piece first."

Zach sighed, and I moved out of the way so he could get the door. My eyes were studying Richard up and down, impassively noting the bandages that still wrapped his torso, visible through his shirt, the recently removed IV marks, the fact that he'd lost weight, before meeting his eyes again.

"You have some balls coming here, Grant. More, to think I'll just let you stay without calling you out on your shit."

I nodded, grim. Now that I was actually facing him, I wasn't so sure opening my mouth was a good idea anyway. Part of me was screaming to demand an apology in turn.

"You almost fucking killed me, you know that? You lied to us both, you took advantage of us, and we have no idea who you are." He turned to Zach, pointing at me. "I'm not sure who the hell this guy thinks he is, but he sure as hell isn't someone I trust to be my teammate! I know _you_ do, but I'm not sure why the fuck we should!"

Zach's expression was one of cold disappointment. He started counting off on his fingers: "Because he hasn't threatened to murder anyone in cold blood, or really done anything hostile beyond defending himself. Because he's gone with everything I've told him to do, and actually held up on his promise to help me. Because if you'd take your head out your ass a minute and think, the only things he's done wrong, he did because he thought he couldn't trust us. And because he decided, after the shit you pulled, to try to set things straight. All of which I've told you, several times." He gestured at me, frustrated, and I started doing my part.

"Look, Richard, I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't fuck up. I've been regretting the way things went on the 18th, on a lot of fronts. I was feeling shitty about the lies, and probably would have tried to do something to fix it in a week or so anyway. No excuse, though. Once we're out of here, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, and I get it if you still hate me, but I'd like to at least be your teammate, if not your friend."

 **Persuade Check(Cha): Rolled 6+1 vs. difficulty 7. Pass.**

"Fuck you," he spat. My heart sank a bit at the failed check, then he turned to get off the bed with a groan, and continued. "I'll accept you on the team, but only because Zach wants it, you gut-checking son of a whore. Zach, come help me up, we've gotta get going." Zach moved to help him into the wheelchair, and after he settled into it, he grunted out. "I got a call a few minutes before you came. We've got a meeting to attend."

"When?"

"Tonight."

-Rolling D20s for no reason-

 **Tech/Medical Check(Int): Rolled 12+3 vs. difficulty 8. Critical Success!**

"Here," I said, passing Richard a small thimbleful of green liquid. "This'll make you feel better for a few hours. Not a good idea to take it too often, with the side effects, but a dose or two shouldn't hurt."

Richard was in shitty shape, to be sure, but the wonders of future first aid kits just so happened to include what I had determined was a non-inhibitive painkiller, fever reducer, and, oddly enough, wart remover, that was several times more effective than morphine. Either that, or I'd just crit failed and handed him a small dose of something very bad, but I was pretty confident.

"Side effects?" he said, scowling at the tincture.

"It's also a mild stimulant. After it wears off, you'll crash hard, and taking multiple doses makes the crash much worse. Plus, you might lose a few birthmarks and moles. No worries though."

Zach backed me up as he drummed his fingers on the wheel, stuck in traffic again. "Take it, Rich. We need you at your best."

I dug in my bag more while he knocked back the stuff. "Green apple?" he muttered in confused disbelief, handing it back. Unfortunately, the medkit didn't have any of the nanite-laced pretech healing stuff, so I had limited options for direct healing at the moment.

"That's all I've got for now, although I'll be helping you get better with a few other things from the kit later." I zipped up the medkit and stuffed it in my pack.

"Long as Zach stays by to make sure you don't do anything weird, fine." He let out a long sigh, leaning back into his seat and setting a hand on his stomach as the medicine took hold. He started talking after a moment, more to Zach than me. "So anyway, like I said, one of our guys, Gerry, I think, got a message from one of Coil's goons. Said that if we were really trying to make up for shit, we should meet at the Rock tonight."

"You think it's a trap?"

"Nah, nobody would mess with neutral ground, especially not Mr. Chessmaster. That'd be asking for Empire to go full bore on his guys, draw attention, and for what? We're not exactly big prizes."

While I listened, I dug out my survival kit and started sorting its contents by order of most in need of reverse engineering to least.

"Yeah, true," Zach agreed. "Well, we don't exactly have the costumes up and running yet, so we better throw them together. Something impressive." He weaved around some guy who was going 25 in a 40 zone. "I want to get there early, so we only have a few hours. Let's grab some food, and get to work."

Fuck, my sleep schedule would be kicking in before the meeting. "One more thing," I chimed in from the back. "I'm gonna need an energy drink or two."

"Sure," he said, "I'll pull into a gas station, grab a few."

"Awesome. I'd be dead on my feet otherwise, thanks." I went back to sorting my survival kit, digging the Type-A power cell out of the radio and putting it with the spare. I needed to figure them out first thing tomorrow, if we were going to be fighting for the next week or two. That way, we could print a bunch of cheap and effective power storage for all manner of tinker gear. My mind, however, was on a bigger problem.

Tattletale was going to be at the meeting, and I would be in no shape to hide things from her.

I'd just have to hope things go well.

…Shit.

* * *

A/N: It's been a long time since I updated, I know. No idea why I stopped writing, but I broke through recently, so I'm back. I'm not going to promise any kind of schedule for this or any of my stories, but I will say this one is officially not dead. New chapters when I can.

In other news, I have another Worm fic coming next Wednesday. If you like Worm but thought it wasn't nearly ridiculously dark and wacky enough, I've crossed it with Saints Row to make your dreams come true.


	9. Ascent 2-2

This chapter partially reviewed by cats. Undead Robot, broughtfromxp, and Abhorsen helped too.

* * *

Ascent 2.2

"Grant, pass me the reflective strip."

I tossed it Richard's way, then went back to digging through the bin of clothes. Fuck, nothing my size. I sorted out a few pairs of shorts and jeans for the others, taking a swig of energy drink as I tossed them in the costume pile behind me.

"Hey Grant, come help me with this!" Zach called from his workstation.

I clambered to my feet, taking another swig as I walked over. "What's up?"

"I need you to take these parts and make sure they won't blow up in any unintended way."

Zach's second project of the night featured a cylindrical core of tinkertech attached to the handle end of an aluminum bat, its glittering microcircuitry and other futuristic tech obviously designed so that it could be covered by a nearby sheath of wood-painted metal to form an innocuous-looking oversized slugger.

"'Kay," I said, "Walk me through it. What does it do?"

"It's the Home Run Bat from Smash Bros, modified for the new theme. Swing it just right, it sends the target flying. Problem is, I'd done a few kinetic energy tech jobs before, so this thing just shorted out on the second hit and went in the trash." He pointed out a few areas of the device. "I've repaired the circuitry here, here, and here. Kinetic buffer is the biggest point of potential disaster, here. Check it over, I gotta go help Rich with the costumes."

"Thanks," I muttered as he left, going for a soldering iron.

 **Tech/Pretech Check(Int): Rolled 7+1 vs. difficulty 7. Pass.**

The repairs went quickly: a few issues with shard-tech worked around, four or five potential points of failure dealt with, and I had a mostly safe, Tinkertech-lite device. If it wasn't destroyed, I might take the bat apart later and write down the schematics of the individual parts, get kinetic tech unlocked.

Unfortunately, the work took time; an hour was gone when I next checked the clock. I cracked open a bottle of water after sealing up the device, wiping my forehead of sweat and getting up to check on costumes.

Richard had finished up with the sewing machine, having added silver and white trim to a dark violet leather jacket left over from some other game. A few other outfits in their sizes lay neatly folded nearby, carefully picked from the prop bins to match different character themes. By the looks of it, he'd moved to the woodworking station, lathe steadily forming what I presumed was the Pimp Cane. Meanwhile, Zach Tinkered away at his station, though I couldn't make out his project from this distance.

I chugged down the bottled water and went to get some more chicken. As I ate and waited for someone to need assistance, I mentally ran threat assessments for the Tattletale situation.

I could tell that I was starting to flag a little. The clock said 5:30, which meant I was less than an hour away from today's sleep cycle. Drowsiness would set in soon, followed by jitters as caffeine warred with serotonin, then most of my background processing would shut down until I only had one or two trains of thought going at once. After that, I could maintain that level of control until I either crashed and was forced asleep, or stayed up all 8 hours.

As far as I knew, I couldn't depend on having mental defenses beyond my saving throws. CYOA mechanics could be a possibility, but the lack of other upsides and downsides implied that wasn't the case. Saving throws probably wouldn't work on Tattletale- she didn't directly affect people, just gathered ambient information- so it stood to reason that she would read me like a book. I couldn't even lay low; she would be drawn to the fact that Uber and Leet were at the meeting as is, never mind that they had a new member.

Basically, by the time we were at Somer's Rock, I wouldn't be able to rely on myself to hide things well, and in general I couldn't expect my 'powers' to hide much either. I needed to assume that everything I knew, she might know. Plan for the worst, hope for better.

"How do you beat a cold reader and information gatherer at her own game, while exhausted out of your mind?" I mumbled as I went to finish off my water. "Hmmm… maybe…"

"Grant, can you come check this one?"

Distracted, I lost my train of thought. "Yeah, one sec," I called back, filing the bits of plan away for later. Taking a final bite of chicken and wiping my hands, I joined Zach at the table, grabbing another energy drink on the way. "Sup?" I said, pulling up a chair.

He gestured at the mess of circuitry on the table. "Got a wireless stun gun, just want a quick check-over."

"Ah, I loved this thing in the game," I commented as I started looking it over.

 **Tech/Pretech Check(Int): Rolled 6+1 vs. difficulty 7. Pass.**

As I got to work, Zach made to get up. "Hey, wait," I said, stopping him. "Can we talk a minute? I wanna clear up a few things before I forget."

"Sure, what?" he asked as he continued to get up, stretching.

I turned the device, finding the first of several flaws that could be repaired, not bothering to de-tinker the design for speed's sake. "I've been wracking my brain a bit. I need a cape name."

He sat back down, disengaging the lock on the swivel chair so he could lean back. "Well, tell me what you've got."

"Umm…" I bought time, distracted by the search for a tool. "Well, I was thinking about your naming scheme, but I'm not the best with leetspeak, and it's hard coming up with a good name as is, let alone a bunch of weird powers and fitting a theme." I swapped a too-weak resistor with a more powerful one, and continued. "Best one I got was Skillz, but that just feels like I'm stealing Uber's shtick, you know?"

He rubbed his chin while I checked a few more spots. "Any other options you came up with?"

I shrugged. "Hax, but I'd really rather not, for… personal reasons." Too cliché. Every fanfic and their uncle used Hax for my position. "Maybe, um," I pulled out a pair of fine tweezers and realigned a part, then dug out the hot glue to prevent it coming loose. "There's Pwn, but I'm not sure I like that either. Phreak, if I was a better computers guy, but that would take a while."

"Huh," he said, sounding a little surprised at the list. "You're really thinking ahead. Good." He spun a bit, thinking. I worked on, and soon deemed the device passable. No major failure points I could see with my presumably successful check.

"I think-"

"What about-"

I stopped, he stopped. I waved for him to continue.

"What about Meta?"

Meta? I mean, it was a gaming term, sure, but… "I-" I stopped, yawning, as a wave of exhaustion made it hard to think. "I mean, why?"

"What? You change the group dynamic, and your powers supposedly change and improve, too. It works."

Yeah, I thought, better than you know. I wasn't from this universe, or didn't think I was anyway, and a name like that would be a stark reminder for as long as I had it. Still, it was better than Skillz or Phreak. "Sure. We'll go with that for now, unless we figure something out later." Hopefully. "I gotta go walk around a minute, maybe splash my face with some water. Seal the thing up for me, would you?" Before I got an answer, I grabbed my drink can and walked away, stifling another yawn.

* * *

Setting the Scene...

* * *

We walked through the tired, shabby streets of the southern docks district. The area was what a less exhausted me might have charitably labeled 'a bit sketchy', AKA that area you could just as easily be fine or dead after walking through it this time of night. Barred windows, heavy doors, and few external decorations made it hard to even tell what was open, and the inset doors would be perfect places for a mugger to hide. Luckily, we were dressed as capes.

At least, a little. Uber was dressed as a pimp, leaning on his Pimp Cane, wearing fine silks over hidden body armor and a ridiculous, feathered, ultra-wide-brimmed hat with a domino mask, all in bright cerulean and sea-green. Leet had on the set of combat gear from my first night, dyed purple and black. I was dressed as a street thug, a pair of aviators barely fitting over my glasses and a bandanna-cap combo on my head. Worse, my body was stuffed into a restrictive and non-zippable violet leather jacket, which pulled tight whenever I bent my elbows, but they were rushed for time and had nothing else close to my size, so it would do.

If anybody was dumb enough to try something, on three people who were obviously capes, on tonight of all nights? Well, I'd pity them.

I smiled wryly at the train of thought. It helped to smile, when I was tired, even if I didn't feel happy or optimistic. Kept my thoughts more in neutral ground, even if it made me feel a bit off-kilter.

Zach _(No, Leet, in costume)_ abruptly stopped, and opened a door. "I think this is the right place," he said in a low voice. "Looks as shitty as I remember, that's for sure."

I just nodded and went inside, too exhausted to banter about the dingy pub, the deaf waitresses, or anything. We took a booth, and I tiredly wrote an order for a double espresso with a shot of whiskey to hopefully shock me awake for the next hour or two, followed by some ice water with lemon.

Fifteen minutes later, as I took my first sip of the vile concoction, the door opened. In walked… _wow, so that's what vantablack looks like._

Grue, looking for all the world like a smoking hole in reality with a skull for a face, glanced around the pub, his empty sockets settling on our table.

Suddenly, things felt a hell of a lot more real. I was starting to regret our nonchalant costume choices.

The other Undersiders filed in behind Grue. Bitch, with her barely-a-costume dog mask; Regent, in his Shakespearean finery; Skitter, whose costume and body language were, well, at least as off-putting as I imagined, despite the fact I rarely cared about bugs; and Tattletale, who I now realized I had never correctly imagined the costume of; it was mostly lavender, with lines of black sort of crosshatching across it. I had the impression it was the opposite, for whatever reason.

Shit, I should not be thinking about their costume descriptions like that. Big Brother is watching, so to speak.

A voice echoed ominously from the void that was Grue. "I see you've been recruiting."

"Provisionally. I hope your group is well?" Uber replied in a voice like smooth chocolate, a fair distance from his casual rough tone. "We… weren't aware that Bakuda was that far off the reservation."

"Sure," Tattletale replied smoothly, her smile mocking. "It was just a game, right?"

Without flinching at the barb, Uber replied, "It was supposed to be, yes. Now we want to stop what we helped start."

I cradled my drink and did my best to focus solely on staying awake, trying not to think about anything important as I internally groaned for not planning more. Tattletale was _right there_ , and I could almost feel her eyes probing me for information. I took a big sip, suppressing a sour expression at the bitter, fiery heat of coffee and liquor that was the only way I would make it through this whole damned affair, and tried to play the part of a shy, exhausted rookie.

 **Stealth Check (Wis): Rolled 7-2 vs. difficulty 9. Fail.**

"Well," Grue said, fishing out a CD from his pocket and throwing the case on our table, "Good luck with that. Here's the fight after you guys left." They turned to go, and I glanced up in time to see a parting smile from Tattletale in my direction. It was the kind of smug look that told me all I needed to know; she had gotten something, regardless of how much or little she had actually used her power. I could only hope it was something less on the 'everything you need to know about everything' side, and more on the 'oh, you're lying to your teammates and your favorite colors are gold and violet' side.

I braced myself, then tossed the rest of my drink back. I did not need this tonight.

* * *

Making Con Saves...

* * *

You know, maybe it was the fact that my brain was now functioning on a heady cocktail of caffeine and serotonin, a pinch of alcohol and taurine, and a whole mess of transdimensional bullshit slow-cooking small sections of my brain to numbness, but man, this meeting was surprisingly dull. Big guy files in, lackeys in tow(or in doppelCoil's case, a lack of lackeys). Show of force is implied. Table seat taken. Repeat.

Of course, my presence did change things.

Uber got to join the table because the duo had actually worked with Bakuda; we had stream recordings of the attack and some minor pieces of information on their resources. Conspicuously absent was the information about the slave-bombs inside the heads of innocents, which they seemed to have missed in their haste to leave the fiasco. I'd neglected to add that detail for the sake of consistency; Grue would mention it anyway.

"Why should you have a seat at the table?" Kaiser asked Grue as he walked over.

Oh, wait, shit. Grue had joined because he had that information on CD in canon.

"You've seen their video," he said without missing a beat, echoing voice betraying nothing as he nodded to Uber. "We fought her. We came out of that intact, and we have information on her powers and tactics that you may regret not hearing."

Kaiser, bastard he was, pondered a moment before nodding assent. I couldn't see his face from this angle (and even if I could it was behind a helm of blades), but I could almost feel the smugness radiating off him from his little show of power. Thank god Grue basically lived for reputation games in costume.

I quietly wished that the car was closer, so I could go to sleep sooner once we left.

Next inside were the Merchants. Skidmark was even less appealing to behold than expected. Ruined greenish-brown teeth, ratty clothing, a whiff of something foul. Behind him was a woman who had to be Squealer dressed like a junkyard Road Warrior, and… who was that? A cape I didn't recognize, too normal-shaped to be Mush, his 'costume' a hoodie that was dripping on the floor like he'd just dumped a bucket of water on his head. While Skidmark called Kaiser a 'puckered, juicy asshole,' I leaned forward and asked Leet for info.

He shrugged.

The moistened mystery joined his other Merchant friends in a booth while I wondered what I'd done to cause such a huge divergence from canon so soon after arrival. The Travelers' entrance shook me out of a half-stupor of tired causality modeling, and I decided the new cape wasn't that important in the end.

The rest of the meeting went about as expected; Uber showed the video once more, complete with introduction, then talked about some insights Leet had made on the tinker's gear. In return, he was snubbed as Grue brought out the much more useful information on internal bombs, Bakuda's general psyche, and her recent lack of toes. To be honest, Uber took it graciously; the kind of people skills he could have when he gave a damn surprised me, powers or no.

I sipped my water as Hookwolf brought up his grievances. Across the room, Tattletale leaned in to whisper with Skitter. I wished I could chat with Leet, who was watching with interest as Grue resolved the dispute, but I doubted I could pay attention to either him or the meeting in any meaningful way for too much longer. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait. Uber got up along with the other members of the main table and headed our way. Coil's double went to discuss rates with Faultline, and the Travelers lingered a bit as well. On their way out the door, the Undersiders walked past our table. Tattletale hung back a moment, and I glanced up.

"Just wanted to congratulate you on the new teammate," she said, and were it not for her expression I might have believed she was sincere. "I hope you think his provisional status through. Wouldn't want it to blow up in your face!"

 **Stealth Check (Wis): Rolled 2-2 vs. difficulty 6. Critical Fail.**

 _Wow, Lisa,_ I thought to myself. _What a dick move. And here I thought I liked you._

Her smug expression flickered a bit as if she'd noticed something disgusting in my teeth. Before I could even begin to bring myself to reply to her sabotage, Skitter arrived at her side. "Is there a problem?"

"...No," Tattletale replied after a pause. "You two have a good night." The two most dangerous teens in the Bay departed.

"Fucking bitch," Leet commented. I neglected to answer, using my remaining brainpower to puzzle out what had just happened. Tattletale had been digging at Leet with the face-blow-up thing, but her focus had been on sabotaging my spot in the group. What were her exact words? Something something 'think things through'? What was that expression she had? Anger? Disgust? Shock?

Leet stood from the booth and Uber took his spot, sliding over so Leet could sit back down. I realized after a moment that this meant we were staying here. I stopped trying to think about things for now, instead asking the most important question there could be in this moment.

"Hey, so, we're not leaving? Is there a reason for that?"

"Well, we were talking, before, and I think we should ask Coil for some resources," Leet said. "We've got things we don't have good supply lines for, and a time limit to get them. All your medical tech, a few of my new ideas, maybe some combat gear…"

I shook my head. "I really think we should work without his help. He's-" I yawned, "-the kind of guy who'd stab us in the back jus' to watch us bleed out, I bet." I finished off my water, looking unhappily at the empty glass as I contemplated working with Coil.

Uber, dropping his announcer voice, nodded assent. "Probably, but unless you can think of a better way to get those materials, we should still ask."

I glanced at Coil's double, seriously discussing terms with Faultline while Newter and Gregor stood guard. I bobbed my head in acknowledgment as I accidentally locked eyes with Gregor. He stared dispassionately, and I looked away.

"Yeah, you're right," I sighed, too tired to argue. "Better him than Empire, I guess." I'd have to stay hands-off with Coil for a while anyway, might as well benefit a bit from his continued villainy. "Maybe ask him now, and get a phl- a phone number? I'm not gonna be able to list off ingredients as I am right now."

"Sure. Let's go talk to him, then get you back home for some rest." They started sliding out of the booth, and after some hesitation, I followed.

"You guys do realize the only reason I'm awake is because I'm high-functioning when impaired, right?" I muttered as we weaved our way across the bar. "I'm basically drunk right now."

"Then don't talk," Uber said, his voice smooth and deep again. "Just look like you mean business. Shouldn't be hard to stand still and look like a goon."

"Right. I'll do that." Anything to get this over with.

We found a seat at the bar near Faultline's group, and shortly thereafter, said group finished their negotiations and left. Uber took the lead in standing, and I begrudgingly followed them over.

"Coil, we'd like to thank you for the opportunity to join the meeting," he said as we approached. "If you have a minute, we'd be interested in an arrangement of our own."

'Coil' motioned to a seat, and Uber took it. Leet sat next to him, and I sat further down. "Of course. You should know though, I am not looking to hire a second group of parahumans to assist us at this time."

"That's a shame, to be sure," Uber said conspiratorially, "but not unexpected. No, we were hoping we could buy tinker supplies through your channels, instead of ours. With a broker's fee, of course."

"Ah, yes, I could certainly provide such a service," the thin man said, leaning forward to express interest. "I hope you understand how expensive that might prove, though. I assume money is no object?"

Leet cut in, putting on his nasally 'streamer voice' just a bit now that he was talking outside the group. "Money is always an object when dealing with tinkertech, of course. Of course we are willing to negotiate alternative forms of payment, should an item prove too expensive for our liking. Favors, free or reduced jobs, custom Tinkertech, and other things in that vein."

Coil's doppelganger steepled his hands. "I would be willing to serve as a middleman for supplies in exchange for… two favors, in future, along with a fifteen percent fee on all purchases. That rate would only apply for the duration of the truce: any continued business would need a more formal arrangement. Do you find that amenable?"

Leet glanced at me, and I nodded reluctantly. Coil was a devil in the literal form of a serpent, offering an apple in exchange for our souls, but we had little else to work with. Two favors just meant two more things to make him pay for when the time came.

"We're in agreement," Leet said. "I look forward to working together."

"As do I," the double said, offering a hand, then proceeding into the most awkwardly stiff shake I'd ever seen. With that sinister deal sealed, we headed home, looking forward to the last night of peaceful rest we'd have for awhile.


	10. Ascent 2-3

Ascent 2.3

The next morning, I made breakfast while the others slept. I turned on the tv and checked out some cartoons while I ate, but didn't really find anything too intriguing. Instead, I browsed PHO for a bit of news and general wiki walking. Once they woke, we quickly set out to the lab, this time bringing along some of my new clothes to modify into costumes.

I started, as always, with my usual studies. The telekinesis scan data had proven interesting, so I focused on that for an hour.

 **Science Check(Int): Rolled 5+2 vs. difficulty 13. Fail.**

Frustrated at a snarl of confusing calculus, I decided not to devote more time to the problem. I needed to reverse engineer a few items today, not to mention getting Coil a list of materials I would need.

I pulled my backpack over to the nanotech station, then dug through it for the survival kit. Taking out the radio, I popped out its power cell and set it on the table in front of me. Such a simple, innocuous device; it looked like a cobalt-blue C battery, with a small display along the side that gave a power reading via simple, idiot-proof bar graphic.

One cell could fuel multiple firings of high-energy weaponry, power powered armors and forcefield arrays for a full day, regardless of workload, and could be charged in under an hour by most high-output power sources, assuming you had a charger.

I didn't have a charger, but I did have an example of what the contacts looked like; enough to figure out how to charge it. All I had to do was _not_ make one of the two cells I had catastrophically fail while I reverse engineered it, and I would be able to give the entire world portable, cheap, high-grade power storage. Even if I died tonight, having plans left behind for that kind of device alone could make post-GM that much easier to recover from, with more portable water purifiers and medical equipment, cheaper vehicles and electronics, and broad universal compatibility between power sources. At least, assuming anyone found and acted on them.

I popped out a spreader from my metatool and got to work dismantling the device.

 **Tech/Pretech Check(Int): Rolled 9+1 vs. difficulty 9. Pass.**

It was surprisingly easy work. The outer shell came off easily. Inside, it housed a cylinder with a small wedge cut out for the display circuit, and a bit of tech capping its contact end. The main body of the cylinder was one solid mass of something black and glossy, probably an epoxy of some sort to insulate the cell. The top assembly seemed to be a power transfer system that allowed it to gauge and moderate power output, but beneath that, it looked strangely hollow. I turned it over, and the reason why was immediately apparent.

The bottom was coated in the same insulating epoxy, which turned out to be clear. The cell itself was mostly filled with a light-warping translucent crystal lattice, which I could see partway through before it became too clouded. The black substance, which I now suspected was at least partially graphene, extended densely packed fractal trees through the crystal in a radial pattern, and a metallic rod extended similar, even finer fractals from plates, fanning outward from the core in a stairstep pattern.

No wonder it was so stable, so energy-dense. It was basically just an incredibly efficient combination of a battery and a supercapacitor, with a solid crystal forming some kind of electrolyte layer between. You could just water-cut sections out of a steadily-produced tube of the material, then add the end cap to turn the inert chunk of material into an infinitely rechargeable battery for a relatively cheap cost per unit.

Which was all well and good, but I still had to figure out the manufacturing process for said tube of material if I was going to get anything done today.

Looks like I had my work cut out for me.

* * *

Chatting with Players...

* * *

"Tonight, our target is a tenement complex the Bad Boyz use as a dealer house," Krieg said to the assembled group, his accent refined, some mix of British and German. "Chances are good that the tinker has rigged the entire tenement's population with explosives. Do not let your guard down. Do not take chances. Disable if necessary, but remember; the people gathered here are your allies in this fight, not them."

He may be a Nazi, but he made a good speech. Ballistic and I exchanged quick looks, and I shrugged. We both knew this speech was purely for our sake; Alabaster and Rune didn't need to be told to go hard on Asians. "I get it," I said. "No endangering other capes. Ballistic and Rune take down the building once everyone is out, and the three of us focus on… controlling the horde."

Krieg nodded, and Alabaster smirked at my word choice. Ballistic said nothing, his squared-off helmet stoic as he looked down.

Rune sighed from her floating chunk of pavement. "Can we go now? I think they get the picture, Krieg."

"Yes, let us begin. The tenement is a few blocks from here. Rune, if you would?"

"My pleasure," she said, jumping off her previous rock. A moment later, lines traced outward from her landing point, scrawling across the asphalt to trace eldritch-looking mazes and, well, runes. They coated a chunk of pavement the size of a car, then stopped after about thirty seconds. The chunk abruptly lifted into the air, breaking loose from the alley street, sending Ballistic, Alabaster and I wobbling while Krieg and Rune remained stable; Krieg was cheating with his powers, had to be, though I didn't remember much about them. The previous chunk took up a lazy orbit as Rune carefully accelerated down the road, giving her passengers time to get low and steady.

"Left, then right two blocks down," Krieg said while standing tall at the forefront of the platform, his wine-red German Army uniform flapping in the wind as he folded his hands behind him. "A right one block after, it will be on the left. I believe the name was Pleasant Ridge." He scoffed. "Not a very accurate name, as you'll see."

Rune followed the directions to the letter, staying low to the ground and executing wide turns that kept momentum constant; a fairly smooth ride, all considered. Soon I could see the tenement complex, and boy, was Krieg right. They looked like they'd been left out in the sun too long. Peeling yellow paint, chipped plaster stucco, and dim yellow lighting made for one very drab and dismal location. In a nicer part of town, the area might even have been better off for the building's upcoming demolition; here, though, all that we would accomplish would be depriving the Docks of living space, and displacing hundreds of Asian residents who didn't deserve this.

Which, I guess, was the whole point of this thinly veiled E88 land grab, and really the gang war as a whole.

We dismounted the rocks at the edge of the lot, roughly sixty feet from the door, leaving Rune and Ballistic to fly around the back and wait for our signal. I considered my arsenal; tonight, I was dressed as a member of the Stillwater SWAT team, complete with riot gear and nonlethal weapons. I had been encouraged to leave the bow; instead, I was carrying a few tear gas grenades, a nightstick, a pistol with two magazines of rubber rounds (and one regular ammunition; I needed lethal options in case of capes), my monoknife, the Stun Gun, and a riot shield, along with my medical kit and monotool for emergencies. I decided that the pistol would be my last resort, despite being the weapon I had the most familiarity with. Instead, I pulled out the Stun Gun and raising my shield.

Krieg strode forward. "Let's draw them out, shall we?" he said. "I'll knock."

The Nazi stomped, sending a piece of rubble flying straight up. He followed that with a well-timed punch, sending it flying through the glass doors of the complex, shattering the quiet of the night. Shouting and sounds of alarm followed shortly. I tightened my grip on the Stun Gun.

From the remnants of the front door, several men in red and green poured out. Lights were flicking on across the complex. We started advancing towards the thugs. With a glance, I activated my telekinetic powers. For the next five minutes, I had line-of-sight super Mage Hand. I dd what any telekinetic should learn to do first and foremost: I used the power to deliver a grenade to a very specific spot without needing to risk a bad throw. In this case, a tear gas grenade flew through the now-open doors, pulled its own switch, and began dispensing its payload into the main lobby.

 **-1 PP, 5/6 remaining.**

It was just too bad the rules heavily penalized stealing weapons from people with TK; failure meant the duration of the power ended immediately. That meant when the fastest member of the ABB headed for the least notorious cape in the group, I had to raise my shield to prevent his baseball bat from breaking my ribs. I grit my teeth at the impact of the bat as it skidded off the ballistic plastic, then leveled the Stun Gun.

 **Rolled 18-1+7= 24/20. Hit.**

The man collapsed, his body suddenly having an epileptic fit as a bolt of pure electricity overloaded his nervous system. Probably left a nasty burn too, if the impact point smoking like that was any indication. Unlike the game, thankfully, the man fell into unconsciousness a moment later, his breaths steady and only moderately wheezy. I resisted the urge to help the man, instead walking over him in my advance towards the door.

Krieg, for his part, was already there. A man who had formerly been the proud owner of a pistol was currently suspended off the ground by one hand, struggling for breath like he was having an asthma attack. The cape threw him back into the tear gas. Alabaster had already rendered the other two men unconscious with his batons. We moved up.

"We're trying to get them _out_ of the building, Krieg," I commented without thinking.

"Oh? Is that why you've blocked their line of sight to the exits?" he shot back coolly. "Yes, they are incapacitated in there, but now we must wait for them to come out."

...I felt like an idiot. Of course I fucked up. I'd been thinking about incapacitating people safely, and the tear gas had seemed like a quick and easy solution mere moments ago. I wasn't really thinking about the endgame. "...Shit," I concluded aloud. "My apologies, then."

We backed off from the door. While the other two chatted, I started really thinking about the situation. I'd have about three minutes of telekinesis left when the gas cleared enough to enter, and most of the bottom floor would likely be incapacitated at the time. We'd have to go in there and drag out the ones who were too overcome by the burning in their mucous membranes to move. The problem was, this was a tall building with a large number of apartments, and while everyone inside was almost certainly a Bakuda bomb-slave, there was no guarantee they'd come outside and fight if they could cower and pretend they were somewhere else instead. I needed to drive them out of the building more quickly, then take them down as they left.

An idea began to form.

"Hey," I called over to the Nazis. "Why don't we tell them the building is coming down?"

They ignored me. I asked again, louder.

"Why bother?" Alabaster replied in a tone that explicitly stated that I wasn't worth his time.

"Well, we want them out fast, right? You guys seem pretty done with this whole thing already, and I don't want anyone dead. So let's break the windows, tell them to evacuate everyone or we bring the building down on top of them, and get the others to shake the building a bit. I've got three more gas grenades; when they come out, I can toss them into the crowd. Then we just sit back and fight anyone who escapes. One lot full of coughing civvies in no time flat."

 **Tactics Check(Int): Rolled 7+1 vs. difficulty 7. Pass.**

"That may work," Krieg conceded. "It's certainly more effort, but I find that an idle hand is a dangerous thing. I will contact Rune. You two begin breaking windows."

Alabaster nodded, pulled one of his pistols, and began shooting out windows from the top floor down. I used telekinesis to grab a rock and punch them out from the bottom up. More than a few screams happened while we worked, and I hoped nobody had been too close to the glass when we'd started.

By the time the gas inside began to thin out, the windows were toast. Krieg opened his mouth, and his voice _boomed_ like only a kinetic manipulator's could. Or, well, I guess Triumph could do it. Or Screamer. Really, any cape with sonic powers. I mentally shrugged and focused on the task.

"…THE BUILDING COLLAPSES. COME OUT, SCUM!" he finished. I grit my teeth behind my mask. I came from the South, so racism wasn't uncommon for me to hear and see; it was one of those things that infuriated me to no end, however, and goddamn did I want to punch the nazi fucks.

Instead of suicide-by-cape, I floated a gas grenade into place near the exit. We spread out as the building shook, Krieg taking the side opposite the door while Alabaster and I went to either edge of the building face to catch the sides of the crowd. People began streaming out as a trickle, then a flood. Some were armed and ready to fight, but most of them were barely even dressed and obviously panicking. I set off the telekinetically-suspended gas grenade and dropped it, then chucked in another. Cries of fear and desperate ramblings quickly subsided into coughing and hacking as the gas obscured the lot.

The first person out on my side was a woman in a fuzzy blue bathrobe, eyes red and lungs wheezing as Uber's special gas mix did its work. She carried a cheap pocketknife limply in her hand. I raised my shield up as she wiped her eyes, stumbled forward, saw me, and-

The woman dropped her knife like it was red-hot, falling to her knees and pleading in Korean.

Another person staggered out as she did. It was a man with a crowbar in red and green, and he ran at me the moment his eyes were remotely clear, heedless of the danger.

 **Rolled 4-1+8=11/20. Miss.**

My Stun-Gun missed completely as the man stumbled on something. As he recovered and rubbed his eyes again, he noticed the woman near my feet, and his expression twisted. _"Get up and fight, you stupid bitch!"_ he spat in Japanese, eyeing me warily, _"This white man is likely to hurt you less than Bakuda."_

" _This white man agrees, but thinks you should shut up and surrender,"_ I replied, ignoring how weird it felt to be fluent in a language I had never spoken before. I shot at him again, not waiting for his reply.

 **Rolled 18-1+8=25/20. Hit.**

The man's expression of surprise turned to shock as he collapsed into a twitching mess, falling between two others who made it out in the short moments of the fight. The woman whimpered as I kicked away the knife. I switched to English, figuring it was more likely to be understood in this situation. "Go back in the gas and tell all who ask that you were incapacitated by it," I told her and the two hacking civilians. "She's insane, but not stupid. You should be safe."

 **Combined Persuade Check (Cha): Rolled 7+0 vs. difficulty 6, 7, 9. Pass, Pass, Fail.**

"We can't!" one of them yelled, raising a golf club. Biting my lip in frustration, I promptly attempted to shoot him, figuring a fast resolution would be best.

 **Rolled 5-1+9=13/20. Miss.**

"Dammit," I cursed as the shot ionized air instead of the charging, half-blind target. His club glanced off my nightstick holster, making me stagger sideways with the sheer force of his terror-fueled strike. His golf club was rendered almost useless, bent horribly where the shaft had struck instead of the head. There was nothing for it but to try to shoot him again; the others had already returned to the gas, and none were emerging anymore.

 **Rolled 20-1+9=28=20. Critical Success!**

The shot caught the man dead center, and he fell limp moments later as the charge finished overloading his system. I felt a pang of sympathy even as I fought back the urge to stomp in anger. At another time, I might have been worried about my lack of adrenaline response, or the fact I'd taken to fighting in general quite well; right now, I was just angry that I had to hurt innocent people, people who wouldn't listen to reason because a psychopath like Bakuda or Lung held a gun to their heads. I was angry, because I could hear Alabaster shooting someone on the opposite side of the cloud and I was culpable in that, that I had to work with people who violated every principle I held and thought themselves justified. This entire situation sucked, and I could do nothing but sit here and wait.

It was night one of at least 7, and I was already regretting the whole damn idea, and it was all my fault for not taking it seriously.

The gas cleared far faster out here, a barely present zephyr stirring the cloud and causing it to dissipate. Within a minute I was able to spot Alabaster and Krieg, the space between us filled with a veritable horde of people in various states of pulmonary distress and unconsciousness. Uber knew how to make a canister of custom tear gas as well as any expert weapons engineer, and tonight's mix apparently had a lot more soporific than most. A few minutes were spent checking the building and kicking out the remainder of the people, then Rune and Ballistic systematically reduced it to rubble. We'd completed our goal of destroying a low-income community to prevent its more final destruction.

 **Objective Complete. 700xp.**

 **ABB Asset Destruction Complete(1/7). 500xp.**

I felt sick the entire flight back.


End file.
